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THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA 
OF  ITALY 


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THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  SERIES 

Edited  by  Richxtrd  Burton 

THE 

CONTEMPORAEY  DRAMA 

OF  ITALY 


BY 


LANDER  MacCLINTOCK,  Ph.D. 


BOSTON 
LITTLE,  BROWN,  AND   COMPANY 

1920 


Copyright,  1920, 
Bt  Little,  Bbown,  and  Compant. 

All  rights  reserved 
Published,  January,  1920 


Set  np  and  electrotyped  by  J.  S.  Gushing  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

The  Contemporary  Drama  of  Italy  has  hitherto  been 
known  to  the  EngHsh-speaking  public  through  the  work 
of  comparatively  few  dramatists.  This  history  hopes 
to  show  these  writers  in  their  chronological  and  literary 
background  and  to  introduce  other  dramatists  who  de- 
serve to  be  known.  If  it  succeeds  in  planting  or  stimulat- 
ing interest  in  the  Italian  Drama,  if  it  gives  an  impulse, 
however  slight,  to  that  movement  for  mutual  under- 
standing which  is  gaining  headway  in  Italy  and  America, 
then  it  shall  have  more  than  fulfilled  its  function. 

An  apology  is  necessary  for  the  uncertainties  in  the 
dating  of  premieres  and  first  printing  of  plays.  There 
is  no  single  source  for  such  data  and  authorities  differ 
so  that  confusion  prevails.  For  completeness  and  cer- 
tainty a  prolonged  investigation  on  the  ground  would 
be  necessary,  a  search  through  journals  and  records  not 
accessible  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  This  would  be  a 
labor  of  years  and  really  lies  outside  the  field  of  the  present 
study.  Wherever  possible  the  dates  have  been  verified, 
but  unfortunately  the  material  in  American  libraries  is 
far  from  complete.  The  author  must  bear  the  blame, 
however,  for  any  flagrant  mistakes. 

My  thanks  are  due  above  all  to  my  mother,  Mrs. 
Porter  Lander  MacClintock  of  the  University  of  Chicago, 
who  has  rendered  me  invaluable  service  in  the  prepara- 

V 


VI  PREFACE 

tion  of  the  manuscript.  Her  helpful  suggestion  and 
friendly  criticism  have  been  a  constant  source  of  in- 
spiration. My  thanks  are  due  also  to  Mr.  Barrett 
Harper  Clark  for  suggestions  and  for  the  use  of  his  valu- 
able dramatic  library,  and  to  the  Editors  of  the  North 
American  Review  for  permission  to  reprint  the  chapter 
on  Roberto  Bracco. 

Lander  MacClintock. 
SwABTHMOBE,  June  28,  1919. 


I 


CONTENTS 

PAoa 

Preface     v 

CHAPTER 

I    The  Foundations 1 

II    Giuseppe  Giacosa 35 

III  The  Early  Realists .62 

IV  Gabriele  D'Annunzio 94 

V    The  Later  Reausts 135 

VI    Roberto  Bracco 163 

VII    Actors  and  Acting;    the  Popular  Theatre;  the 

Dialect  Theatre 181 

VIII    The  Younger  Generation 210 

IX    Futurism  and  Other  Isms 234 

Bibliographical  Appendix 263 

Index 303 


THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA 
OF  ITALY 


CHAPTER  I 
The  Foundations 

The  contemporary  drama  of  Italy,  like  every  other 
living  literary  manifestation,  mirrors  the  interests  and 
the  thinking  of  the  society  that  produces  and  enjoys  it. 
"With  a  knowledge  of  the  political,  social,  religious,  and 
artistic  currents  that  have  swayed  the  nation  for  the  last 
hundred  years,  one  could  almost  prognosticate  the  drama. 
In  order,  however,  to  make  his  prognostication  safe,  he 
would  have  to  take  into  account  the  more  narrowly  literary 
heritage  that  accrued  to  the  new  movement. 

It  must  be  considered  as  taking  its  rise  in  the  decline 
of  the  romantic  movement  which  in  Italy  as  elsewhere, 
having  flourished  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  lingered  on  through  the  second  quarter  and  died 
out  in  the  third. 

If  one  may  boldly  indicate  at  the  very  outset  what 
seems  to  be  the  fundamental  distinction  between  the 
disappearing  mode  'and  the  newly  appearing  one,  he 
may  say  that  it  is  to  be  found  in  a  certain  shift  of  emphasis, 


2  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

a  transference  of  purpose.  The  aim  and  ideal  of  the 
Romanticist  was  effectiveness,  that  of  the  modern  was 
fidehty  to  Hfe  and  fact ;  the  Romanticist  exalted  beauty, 
the  modern  proclaimed  truth ;  the  Romanticist  staked  all 
on  a  direct,  simple,  and  often  violent  appeal  to  the  emo- 
tions; the  modern,  a  better  psychologist,  attempted  to 
reach  the  emotions  through  the  intellect,  —  he  expects 
his  reader  or  spectator  to  be  convinced  as  well  as  moved. 
Indeed,  tj'pically  he  expects  him  to  be  moved  because  he 
is  convinced. 

Putting  it  broadly,  then,  one  may  say  that  the  two  things 
that  characterize  the  modern  movement  in  literature  are 
first,  reality,  fidelity  to  life,  truth  to  fact,  —  whatever 
the  phrase  one  chooses  to  name  this  single  but  many-sided 
aspect ;  and  second,  the  intellectualization  of  its  themes. 
Of  these  two  the  first  characteristic  is  peculiarly  accept- 
able to  the  Italian  genius.  Realism  expresses  something 
that  is  of  the  very  fibre  of  the  Italian  nature.  Roman- 
ticism was  to  begin  with  an  importation  from  without, 
—  from  England,  Germany,  France ;  it  had  no  native  root 
in  Italy.  It  remained  exotic  and  alien  and  never  really 
"ran  wild." 

The  mind  of  the  Italian  is,  in  spite  of  that  vivacity  of 
manner  that  seems  to  indicate  emotionality,  concerned 
primarily  with  the  intellectual  or  more  narrowly  with  the 
rational,  or  perhaps  still  more  narrowly  with  the  logical 
aspect  of  things.  As  a  people  they  are  typically  realistic, 
and  as  is  the  case  with  the  inwardly  intellectual  though  out- 
wardly emotional  French,  these  mental  characteristics 
all  hinge  upon  their  prepossession  with  actuality.  The 
Italian  acts  upon  no  uncriticised  and  unguided  instincts. 
From  certain  points  of  view  he  is  the  most  unprejudiced 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  3 

man  In  Europe,  in  that  he  proceeds  upon  no  assumptions. 
To  him  there  is  no  mystery  he  may  not  probe,  no  sanctities 
he  may  not  investigate;  he  has  no  reticences,  he  cherishes 
no  idols.  To  him  the  romantic  doctrine  of  "  tant  pis  pour 
lesfaits"  has  no  validity,  since  he  brings  everything,  even 
things  that  have  immemorially  lurked  in  the  shadow  of 
illusion,  to  the  test  of  fact  and  examines  it  in  the  glare 
of  actuality.  He  is  dominated  not  by  ideals  but  by  ideas. 
He  is  interested  in  life  and  contented  with  it  as  it  is. 
There  is  much  that  is  admirable  and  reassuring  in  the 
fearless  intellectual  integrity  of  the  modern  Italian.  For 
so  many  centuries  the  national  mind  seemed  to  be  cramped 
in  a  religious  strait-jacket,  confronted  wherever  it  might 
turn  by  an  ecclesiastical  cul-de-sac,  that  its  emergence  into 
the  independence  of  an  extra-doctrinal  world  partook 
of  the  nature  of  a  triumph.  And  modern  Italians  have 
achieved  an  independence  undreamed  of  in  an  Anglo- 
Saxon  community  in  which  thinking  and  conduct  are  so 
vigorously  regulated  by  public  opinion  that  the  very 
power  to  think  and  to  will  has  become  a  sacrifice  to  this 
intangible  but  powerful  monster.  We  may  see  the 
Italian  guided  by  his  untrammeled  reason  through  a 
region  where  an  Englishman  follows  the  dictates  of  good 
form,  or  responds  to  a  purely  emotional  reaction. 

It  throws  much  light  upon  Italian  art  in  all  its  forms  to 
remember  that  typically  and  essentially  the  Italian  learns 
from  the  outer  world  and  trusts  little  to  inward  illumina- 
tion. Of  course  to  the  Italian  realist,  as  to  thoughtful 
realists  anywhere,  nature  and  life  are  taking  on  constantly 
new  meanings  before  his  eyes,  and  must  be  looked  at  under 
constantly  changing  aspects.  But  he  is  not  primarily  if 
at  all  concerned  with  interpretation;  he  is,  when  he  is 


4  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

typical,  portraying  external  things  in  the  light  of  in- 
telligent observation,  not  presenting  inner  things  under 
the  glow  of  emotion.  He  is  realistic,  not  romantic;  his 
work  as  a  literary  man  is  epic  or  dramatic  rather  than  lyric. 
Even  in  the  Shakespearean  imitations  of  Manzoni,  in 
the  violent  emotionalism  of  Cossa's  lurid  plays,  in  the 
determined  medievalism  of  Marenco  —  in  these,  the  great 
romanticists  of  Italy's  modern  theatre,  one  may  easily 
detect  these  two  proofs  of  their  native  misgivings :  a 
striving  after  some  form  or  some  degree  of  verisimilitude 
to  life  and  fact,  and  a  pervading,  if  faint,  tinge  of  ironic 
disbelief  in  the  thing  they  are  doing.  Manzoni,  Cossa  and 
Marenco  were  all  the  while  conscious  of  the  romanticism 
of  their  work ;  it  and  its  atmosphere  were  of  the  nature  of 
a  iour-de-force,  never  the  result  of  a  spontaneous  impulse. 
Since  the  advent  of  the  historical  method  of  criticism, 
perhaps  the  most  precious  product  of  the  great,  critical 
eighteenth  century,  and  the  work  of  Herder,  its  most 
notable  exponent,  it  has  become  forever  impossible  to 
discuss  a  literary  movement  as  an  isolated  phenomenon ; 
the  principle  that  no  literary  age  is  without  influence  upon 
its  successor,  which  in  turn  bequeaths  a  legacy  to  its  own 
descendant,  has  become  a  fixed  law  in  critical  technic. 
Literary  history  cannot  be  regarded  as  a  series  of  juxta- 
posed but  separate  epochs  like  a  string  of  beads,  but 
must  be  seen  rather  as  a  series  of  links  forming  a  living 
chain,  mostly  closely  and  intricately  conjoined.  In 
Italy,  as  we  may  expect,  the  contemporary  drama  is 
related  to  its  predecessor  in  this  complex  way.  It  is 
partly  a  reaction  against  the  excesses  and  extravagances 
of  the  older  period  as  all  new  movements  are.  Yet  it 
was  obliged  to  accept  from  its  predecessor  some  ideas 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  5 

and  principles  that  are  still  efficacious,  such  as,  for  instance, 
truth  to  local  color,  the  avoidance  of  anachronisms, 
"preservation  of  the  tone",  particularization  rather  than 
generalization  of  experience  and  of  expression,  the  interest 
and  value  of  lowly  people  and  common  emotion;  these 
are  to-day  a  much-prized  part  of  the  baggage  of  every 
practical  dramatist  and  every  dramatic  theorist. 

More  potent  than  any  of  these,  however,  is  the  principle 
evolved  by  the  pre-moderns  that  the  drama  may  legiti- 
mately concern  itself  with  social  problems,  with  economic 
conditions  and  laws,  with  matters  of  moral  and  political 
justice.  One  may  say  that  this  concern  with  big  social 
and  ethical  questions  has  been  the  dominating,  when  it 
has  not  been  the  actuating  principle  of  modern  drama  in 
England,  in  France,  in  Scandinavia,  in  Germany,  coming 
to  its  completest  expression  in  Ibsen,  in  George  Bernard 
Shaw,  in  Eugene  Brieux,  in  Hauptmann.  In  Italy,  too, 
this  type  of  play  has  found  a  place,  —  though  by  no  means 
so  large  or  so  early  a  place  as  in  the  other  countries.  This 
fact  has  some  interesting  explanations. 

It  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  the  French  Rev- 
olution, putting  into  active  practice  the  ideas  of  social 
justice  worked  out  during  the  eighteenth  century,  should 
have  echoes  and  reverberations  in  Italy.  It  brought 
home  to  this  nation  also  the  idea  of  the  individual's 
responsibilities  and  privileges;  and  we  see  its  drama 
becoming  steadily  though  quietly  less  and  less  a  mere 
literary  and  theatrical  performance,  and  more  and  more 
a  vehicle  of  ideas,  a  laboratory  of  theories,  a  school  of 
conduct. 

f  But  up  to  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth  century  this 
revolutionary  seed  could  not  openly  and  freely  come  to 


b  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

flower  and  fruit.  Italy  was  under  the  heel  of  the  Austrian 
invader  and  the  censorship  was  strict.  But  with  the 
casting  out  of  the  enemy  the  gates  were  opened,  the  chains 
were  struck  off,  and  the  social  drama,  the  characteristically 
modern  drama,  was  free  to  develop  as  its  genius  dictated. 

In  Italy  there  is  no  definite  date,  such  as  may  be  assigned  I 
in  France,  at  which  the  dying  romantic  gave  place  to  the 
rising  realistic  drama.  The  dramatists  of  the  quarter- 
century,  1835-1860,  were  transition  writers  dividing  their 
allegiance  between  the  old  and  the  new,  and  in  their  work 
there  is  the  well-known  transfusion  of  the  two  manners 
and  matters.  Cossa  combined  the  romantic  and  realistic 
tendencies  to  the  confusion  of  both;  Leopoldo  Marenco 
was  frankly  romantic,  but  with  strikingly  modern  elements 
in  his  work;  Paolo  Giacometti's  Civil  Death  has  been 
called  the  first  modern  Italian  drama  —  and  it  is  the  first 
to  discuss  a  vital,  practical  social  problem  —  prison  reform ; 
Giuseppe  Giacosa  begins  as  an  idyllic,  romantic,  idealistic 
writer  of  delicate  trifles  such  as  A  Game  of  Chess,  but  in 
his  later  plays  such  as  Sad  Loves  {Trisii  Amori)  attains 
well-nigh  the  austere  and  naked  verity  of  Ibsen. 

Again,  in  Italy  no  single  man  or  small  group  of  men  can 
be  named  as  inaugurating  the  new  movement.  In  France, 
of  course,  it  is  possible  to  draw  a  definite  line,  and  say 
that  with  the  advent  of  Emile  Augier,  Dumas  fils  and  pre- 
eminently, Henri  Becque,  the  old  order  in  drama  came  to 
an  end,  and  the  new  began.  It  is  very  different  in  Italy. 
On  the  one  hand,  as  one  might  expect  in  this  intellectual 
and  objective-minded  people,  there  were  currents  of 
realism  running  through  their  drama  from  the  early  years 
of  the  nineteenth  century  when  the  other  literary  peoples 
of  Europe  were  entirely  absorbed  in  romanticism;    on 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  7 

the  other  hand,  the  romantic  tragedy  in  verse  has  flourished 
in  Italy  as  in  no  other  country,  and  it  still  has  there  more 
blood  in  it  than  any  other  form  of  play.  To  the  average 
Italian  even  to-day  the  representative  dramatists  of  his 
country  are  not  the  prose  writers  of  social  plays  —  not 
Bracco,  not  Marco  Praga,  not  Butti,  but  poets,  —  Gabriele 
D'Annunzio,  Sem  Benelli. 

But  while  it  is  true  that  romantic  currents  still  flow  more 
or  less  beneath  the  surface  in  a  realistic  age,  just  as  realist 
currents  flowed  more  or  less  obscurely  through  the 
romantic  period,  we  may  still  say  quite  definitely  that  it 
is  realism  with  its  precocious  child  naturalism  that  has 
now  gained  the  ascendancy  in  literature  and  in  the  theatre. 

Is  it  fair  to  say  that  the  Italians  are  a  histrionic  rather 
than  a  dramatic  people?  In  another  connection  mention 
has  been  made  of  their  vivacity  of  manner  as  implying  a 
degree  of  emotionality  which  they  really  do  not  possess. 
This  same  vivacity  of  manner  —  the  incessant  and  elo- 
quent play  of  expression  and  flash  of  gesture  —  has 
sometimes  won  for  them  the  epithet  "dramatic",  when  as 
a  matter  of  fact  it  indicates  no  capacity  for  those  matters 
that  constitute  the  real  life  of  the  drama.  It  may  be,  and 
is,  a  desirable  part  of  the  equipment  of  the  actor;  it 
does  not  argue  the  gifts  of  the  dramatist. 

If  we  look  at  their  literary  history  we  shall  find  before 
the  nineteenth  century  but  two  dramatists  to  be  men- 
tioned along  with  Corneille,  Racine,  Moli^re,  Beaumar- 
chais,  and  Voltaire  —  Alfieri  and  Goldoni.  And  there 
has  never  been  in  Italy  as  there  was  in  England  in  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  in  France  in  the  seventeenth,  a 
great  period  of  dramatic  florescence.  There  is  not  a 
single  name  in  Italy  to  place  near  the  names  of  Shake- 


8  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

speare,  Marlowe,  Jonson.  One  searches  in  vain  up  to 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  for  one  important 
name  in  drama,  —  and  this  statement  is  made  in  full 
cognizance  of  Guarini,  whose  Pastor  Fido,  by  one  of  those 
strange  accidents  of  literary  history,  had  a  European 
influence,  of  Metastasio,  whose  librettos  are  reckoned 
good  plays  by  some  critics,  and  of  the  many  other  writers 
of  obscure  plays. 

It  would  seem  obvious  that  a  people  who  during  a 
literary  experience  of  five  hundred  years  produced  only 
two  dramatists  of  only  fairly  high  rank,  cannot  justly  be 
called  dramatically  gifted. 

It  may  seem  more  or  less  of  a  paradox  to  say  that  the 
common  man  of  Italy  —  il  popolo  —  has  always  had  un- 
usual histrionic  talent  and  has  been  very  fond  of  the 
theatre,  finding  in  it  an  outlet  for  his  feeling,  a  congenial 
vehicle  of  self-expression,  and  a  perennial  source  of  enter- 
tainment. The  popular  drama  and  the  theatre  of  the 
populace  reached  its  apogee  in  the  Commedia  deWArte, 
the  improvised  comedy,  which  was  at  the  height  of  its 
popularity  a  hundred  years  ago,  but  which  still  survives 
and  even  flourishes  in  the  playhouses  of  the  humbler 
quarters  of  Florence,  Bologna,  Rome,  and  Naples. 

This  Commedia  dell'Arte  is  the  product  of  the  histrionic 
gifts  and  tastes  of  the  Italian  people,  rather  than  the 
outgrowth  of  a  genius  for  drama.  It  is  born  of  the  love 
of  a  show,  movement,  dancing,  of  the  love  of  farce  and 
jokes  and  the  familiar  social  "take-off"  of  one's  friends  and 
neighbors ;  it  bears  no  trace  of  evolution  and  interplay  of 
character,  displays  no  attempt  to  create  the  thrill  of  an 
intense  situation  or  the  interest  of  an  interwoven  plot. 

In  Italy  the  Commedia  delVArte  is  indigenous  and  comes 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  9 

from  the  very  soul  of  the  people.  It  is  their  very  own 
theatre  where  they  see  themselves  and  their  friends  on 
the  stage  as  in  real  life,  hear  spoken  the  language  they 
use  in  house  and  market,  hear  allusions  to  the  very  places, 
objects  and  people  that  they  know  best.  How  dear  this 
comedy  has  been  to  them  is  witnessed  by  the  fact  that 
here,  a  unique  instance,  is  genuine  folk  drama  surviving 
to  our  own  day  in  the  midst  of  sophisticated  intellectual 
communities. 

The  love  of  the  spectator  for  the  show  is  matched  by  the 
delight  of  the  actors  in  presenting  it.  It  is  true  that  the 
Italians  have  by  nature  many  gifts  as  actors,  —  vivid, 
expressive  faces,  mobile,  eloquent  bodies,  musical,  flexible 
voices,  the  capacity  for  working  themselves  up  to  climaxes 
of  passion,  a  hereditary  tradition  of  great  and  clever 
acting.  One  can  scarcely  set  foot  in  Italy  without  realizing 
that  he  is  among  a  nation  of  actors.  It  is  when  he  studies 
their  literary  drama  that  he  recognizes  the  chasm  that 
may  lie  between  histrionic  ability  and  dramatic  creative- 
ness,  that  he  realizes  that  the  producing  of  drama  and  the 
interpretation  of  it  may  be  quite  different  things. 

Historically  the  divorce  between  folk  or  popular  and 
art  and  literary  drama  remained  complete  until  within 
the  last  fifty  years.  When  the  moderns  with  their  con- 
viction that  literature  should  mirror  life  and  fact  ap- 
proached the  drama,  they  found  in  the  Commedia  a 
form  of  realism  that  they  were  obliged  to  respect.  It  is 
the  union  of  the  two  impulses  together  with  certain 
influences  from  outside  that  infused  new  blood  into  the 
well-nigh  lifeless  body  of  Italian  drama. 

There  is  one  notable  exception  to  the  statement  that 
art  and  popular  drama  have  always  been  separate  in, 


10  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

Italy,  and  that  exception  is  the  greatest  of  all  Italian 
comedians  if  not  the  most  distinguished  of  all  Italian 
dramatists,  —  Carlo  Goldoni. 

A  truly  national  and  great  drama  results  only  when  an 
artist  takes  hold  of  the  drama  of  the  people,  uses  its  crude 
but  genuine  elements,  elevates  them  into  the  sphere  of 
art,  and  organizes  them  into  things  of  beauty,  style  and 
distinction,  turning  folk  drama  into  literature  without 
depriving  it  of  its  native  and  popular  qualities.  "This 
is  the  true  national  drama,"  says  Richard  Garnett, 
"when  the  pulses  of  the  poet  and  the  people  beat  in  full 
unison,  and  of  which  Greece,  England,  and  Spain  have 
given  the  world  the  most  brilliant  examples."  Eschylus, 
Shakespeare  and  Calderon  did  not  repudiate  the  folk 
plays;  they  transcended  them,  retaining  their  sincerity 
and  their  universality.  This  is  what  Goldoni  did ;  indeed, 
his  use  of  the  popular  play  is  much  more  evident  than 
that,  for  he  rewrote  the  Commedia  delVArte  into  a  true 
comedy  of  manners,  and  so  successful  was  he  in  retaining 
the  elements  dear  to  the  people  that  "Good  Goldoni", 
"Papa  Goldoni",  is  the  best  beloved  and  the  most  truly 
popular  of  Italian  playwrights. 

He  began  his  dramatic  career  as  a  writer  of  those  scenarios 
upon  which  the  comedians  were  wont  to  embroider  as  the 
inspiration  of  the  moment  prompted  them.  The  scenario 
was  merely  the  outline  or  sketch  of  the  plot,  from  which 
each  actor  in  the  Commedia  gathered  the  trend  of  the 
story  scene  by  scene  —  each  actor  being  expected  to 
improvise  his  share  of  the  dialogue  as  he  went.  Goldoni 
soon  learned  that  he  could  not  depend  upon  the  actors 
to  put  into  his  story  any  of  the  finer  shades  of  meaning  or 
any  of  the  subtler  touches  of  character  that  were  in  his 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  11 

own  image  of  it.  So  he  proceeded  to  write  out  the  words 
he  wanted  the  actors  to  speak.  The  result  was  a  drama, 
a  real  drama  on  the  general  outline  of  the  Commedia. 
His  plays  have  the  indigenous  quality,  the  racy  flavor  of 
their  ancestry  and  at  the  same  time  possess  that  unity  of 
purpose  and  sentiment  which  only  an  artist  can  give. 
Thus  at  a  stroke  Goldoni  created  Italian  comedy;  for 
as  the  English  tradition  in  comedy  comes  down  from 
Fielding,  and  the  French  from  Moliere,  so  the  Italian 
proceeds  direct  from  Goldoni.  It  is  the  tradition  of 
humor  not  of  satire ;  it  is  not  so  much  the  criticism  of  social 
mistakes  as  the  display  of  pardonable  social  foibles ;  it  is 
the  comedy  of  character  rather  than  of  intrigue,  of  human 
experience  rather  than  of  constructed  plot ;  it  moves  in  a 
bourgeois  world  of  middle-class  emotions  and  situations, 
not  in  noble  high-born  circles,  or  in  professional  and 
academic  groups ;  good-humored,  a  bit  sentimental,  sane 
and  clear-headed,  full  of  ineffable  commonsense  —  this 
is  the  Goldonian,  and  therefore  the  truly  Italian  comedy, 
the  comedy  of  Ferrari,  of  Gallina,  of  Giacosa,  of  Torelli 
and  Testoni.  With  modification  to  suit  the  demands  of 
modern  psychology  and  the  modern  theatre,  this  seems 
likely  to  remain  permanently  the  type  and  model  of 
Italian  comedy. 

The  place  that  Goldoni  occupies  in  comedy  must  in 
tragedy  be  assigned  to  Alfieri.  In  tragedy  he  is  the  foun- 
tainhead  of  Italian  inspiration.  Since  his  overmastering 
talent  gave  its  first  impulse  to  verse  tragedy  this  form  of 
drama  has  been  admired  and  enjoyed  in  Italy  with  a 
relish  and  a  steadiness  that  it  has  not  achieved  in  any 
other  country.  The  writers  of  verse  tragedies  are  legion 
and  count  in  their  ranks  some  of  the  foremost  Italian 


12  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP   ITALY 

dramatists.  At  this  day  the  public  will  crowd  the  theatres 
to  see  Benelli's  The  Love  of  the  Three  Kings  or  his  Supper 
of  Jokes  or  D'Annunzio's  Francesca  da  Rimini.  And 
though  there  are  many  and  vital  differences  between 
these  and  the  verse  tragedies  of  Alfieri,  the  line  is  un- 
broken and  the  transformation  has  been  gradual  and 
organic. 

In  direct  contrast  to  the  comedy  of  Goldoni,  the 
tragedy  of  Alfieri  is  not  native  to  Italian  soil,  has  no 
root  in  the  life  of  the  people.  It  is  rather  a  purely  con- 
ventional art  drama  on  the  classical  model.  It  is  of  the 
line  of  Seneca  and  however  it  may  have  been  modified 
as  it  has  come  down,  now  by  the  demands  of  a  changing 
mode,  now  by  the  expectation  of  a  new  public,  now  by 
modifications  and  improvements  in  theatrical  production, 
taking  an  occasional  excursion  into  Romanticism,  anon 
following  a  sidetrack  into  Shakespeareanism,  its  deter- 
mining characteristics  have  remained  unchanged,  — 
rhetorical,  intellectual,  close-knit,  the  product  of  the 
brain  rather  than  of  the  heart,  the  tragedy  of  character, 
rather  than  of  fatal  events.  Matthew  Arnold  ascribes 
to  Alfieri  a  certain  "narrow  elevation",  a  dignity  and 
nobility  of  purpose  and  when  his  plays  are  at  their  best,  a 
high  moral  purpose.  (This  last  quality  one  may  say 
without  injustice  has  dropped  out  of  the  work  of  his  most 
recent  descendants.) 

This  then  is  the  true  Italian  dramatic  tradition  :  Goldoni 
in  comedy,  Alfieri  in  tragedy.  The  modern  movement  has 
in  Italy  as  elsewhere  added  to  these  two  varieties  a  third 
form  of  play  —  what  the  French  call  "le  drama",  the 
Italians  "dramma."  This  term  has  taken  on  a  semi- 
technical  value,  and  designates  the  play  concerned  with  a 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  13 

serious  theme  whose  outcome  is  neither  necessarily  tragic 
nor  comic.  It  is  one  species  of  the  drame  —  the  problem 
play  —  that  is  the  characteristic  product  of  the  modern 
dramatic  movement,  its  specific  contribution  to  the  world's 
store  of  art.  Though  it  had  been  distinctly  foreshadowed 
by  Denis  Diderot  in  France  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  the  drame  did  not  come  into  being  as  a  definite 
form  until  well  down  in  the  nineteenth  century  with  the 
advent  of  Alexander  Dumas  fib  and  Emile  Augier.  The 
former's  La  Dame  aux  Camelias  and  La  Femme  de  Claude, 
and  the  latter's  Gendre  de  M.  Poirier  and  Le  Mariage 
dVlyynpe  fixed  the  direction  in  which  the  new  type  was 
to  develop,  and  under  the  inspiration  of  these  two,  Henrik 
Ibsen  definitely  and  irrevocably  settled  the  form. 

In  Italy  too  "the  drama"  came  into  being  under  the 
inspiration  of  the  same  two  great  Frenchmen  whose 
influence  spread  south  across  the  mountains  as  well  as 
north  to  the  shores  of  the  fiords,  and  gave  us  in  Italy, 
Ferrari,  Giacosa,  Bracco  and  Butti,  all  of  whom  received 
traceable  influences  from  Dumas  fils,  and  produced  plays 
of  contemporary  setting  dealing  with  social  questions  in  a 
serious,  though  not  necessarily  tragic  way,  —  the  problem 
play. 

This  influence  of  French  models  upon  Italian  literature, 
notably  upon  drama,  is  one  of  the  outstanding  features  of 
the  modern  movement.  The  borrowing  from  the  French 
is  incessant;  all  aspects  of  the  movement  had  had  a 
prompt  echo  in  Italy;  realism,  naturalism,  socialism, 
every  French  "-ism"  breeds  an  Italian  "-ism."  Dumas 
fils  can  claim  as  disciples  if  not  as  imitators  Giacosa, 
Bracco,  Butti  and  a  host  of  others;  Henri  Becque  has 
almost  as  many;  fimile  Zola  is  the  idol  of  the  "Verists" 


14  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

led  by  Giovanni  Verga,  who  even  planned  a  series  of 
novels  and  dramas  on  the  scheme  of  the  "  Rougon-Mar~ 
quart.'*  Zola's  " Naturalisme  au  Theatre"  supplies  the 
arsenal  of  weapons  with  which  the  Italian  theorists  deal 
with  their  opponents.  In  the  earlier  age  Victor  Hugo 
had  imposed  upon  the  Italian  Neo-Romanticists  his 
doctrine  of  contrast,  his  teaching  that  the  hero  be  the 
"homme  fatal"  pursued  by  his  implacable  destiny,  the 
dictum  that  drama  should  lay  down  great  principles 
through  great  deeds. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  half  the  plays  now  produced  in  Italy 
are  either  direct  translations  or  close  adaptations  from 
the  French,  —  the  Gallic  flavor  being  present  in  the  most 
Italian  of  productions.  This  fact  becomes  very  impor- 
tant for  an  understanding  of  the  contemporary  Italian 
theatre. 

Before  entering  the  more  detailed  investigation  of  the 
field  proper  to  this  study  it  seems  necessary  to  give  a 
glance  at  certain  things  in  previous  periods  that  vitally 
conditioned  the  new  movement.  First,  in  any  study  of 
the  modern  world  one  must  take  into  account  the  revolu- 
tionary romantic  period.  In  Italy,  as  everywhere  else, 
this  movement  had  its  side  of  reaction  against  formalism, 
and  of  assertion  of  individuality,  freedom  and  human- 
itarianism.  But  the  Romantic  movement  did  not  assume 
in  Italy,  as  it  did  in  France,  the  aspect  of  a  great  convul- 
sion of  nature  —  a  necessary  and  irresistible  upheaval  — 
and  it  did  not  establish  the  unshakable  foundation  that  it 
built  in  France. 

Madame  de  Stael,  classifying  literature  as  Northern 
and  romantic  on  the  one  hand,  and  Southern  and  classical 
on  the  other,  used  Italy  as  furnishing  the  best  example  of 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  15 

the  classical.  Naturally  the  very  characteristics  that 
make  Italians  par  excellence  the  exponents  of  the  classical 
strain  disqualify  them  for  attaining  excellence  in  the 
romantic,  the  diametrically  opposite  strain,  at  variance 
with  their  traditions  and  unacceptable  to  their  taste. 
Like  Gothic  architecture  romanticism  was  an  immi- 
grant into  Italy  and  never  succeeded  in  becoming  nat- 
uralized. Northern  literary  art  began  to  exert  a  cal- 
culable influence  upon  the  Italian  drama  only  after  the 
man  who  was  destined  to  become  Italy's  greatest  romantic 
writer  had  come  under  the  spell  of  Shakespeare,  of  Walter 
Scott,  and  of  Goethe. 

This  man  was  Alessandro  Manzoni  (1785-1873).  He 
went  when  very  young  to  Paris.  When  still  a  youth  he 
became  acquainted  with  Northern  literature  under  the 
guidance  of  Madame  de  Stael,  whose  " De  la  Litterature" 
became  an  important  formative  influence  in  his  education. 
Through  her  he  became  acquainted  with  the  plays  of 
Shakespeare,  whom  he  passionately  admired.  The  marvel- 
ous humanity,  the  gigantic  power  of  the  great  English- 
man took  complete  possession  of  Manzoni,  and  he  resolved 
to  write  on  this  great  romantic  model,  rather  than  in  the 
conservative  classical  mold  of  his  fellow  countrymen. 
He  wrote  two  important  plays,  II  Conte  di  Carmagnola 
(1819)  and  Adelchi  (1822).  In  these  Manzoni  tries  to 
secure  an  air  of  verisimilitude,  to  capture  and  present  the 
atmosphere  of  the  century  in  which  each  play  is  set,  the 
former  play  being  laid  in  the  fifteenth  century,  the 
latter  in  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  He  was  concerned  to 
represent  the  right  historical  milieu,  with  the  custom  and 
the  passions  proper  to  it,  and  so  to  do  away  with  the 
psychological,    political    and    social    anachronisms    that 


16  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

deface  the  plays  of  Alfieri.  It  is  amusing  to  notice,  how- 
ever, that  the  general  atmosphere  of  the  two  plays  whose 
actions  lie  presumptively  seven  hundred  years  apart  is 
the  same;  the  persons  of  the  ninth  century  think,  feel 
and  talk  precisely  like  those  of  the  fifteenth.  This, 
however,  is  a  fault  of  execution  rather  than  conception, 
for  Manzoni  was  quite  aware  of  the  absurdity  of  those 
fundamental  anachronisms.  Manzoni  was  ever  a  dramatic 
play  poet  rather  than  a  playwright;  and  his  scenes  of 
greatest  power  are  those  in  which  he  has  the  best  chance 
to  write  fine  verses,  in  the  choruses,  for  instance,  with 
which  the  action  is  punctuated.  The  two  lyrics,  one  in 
II  Conte  di  Carmagnola,  the  other  in  the  Adelchi,  are 
brilliant  outpouring  of  a  sincere  and  fervent  patriotism 
and  are  glorious  triumphs  of  lyric  art.  Some  one  has  said 
"their  wonderful  plunging  meter  suggests  a  charge  of 
horse." 

II  Conte  di  Carmagnola  when  it  first  appeared  in 
print  was  attacked  by  the  Quarterly  Review  with  its 
customary  violence.  It  is  interesting  to  know  that  no 
less  a  person  than  Goethe,  the  eagle  king  of  poets,  came 
to  the  defense  of  Manzoni,  —  one  genius  divining  the 
other.  The  particular  point  of  the  Quarterly's  attack 
was  the  Italian  poet's  violation  of  the  established  rules 
of  tragedy,  and  Goethe's  defense  of  his  friend  was  the 
justification  of  his  attempt  to  cast  off  the  shackles  of  an 
outworn  technic. 

From  a  technical  point  of  view  Manzoni  is  of  great 
importance  in  the  history  of  the  drama.  In  his  day  the 
Italian  play  was  still  saddled  with  the  weight  of  the  three 
unities,  and  other  conventional  working  rules  which  Ren- 
aissance critics  had  "discovered"  in  Aristotle.    Manzoni 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  17 

saw  clearly  that  the  unities  of  time,  place  and  action  had 
served  their  purpose,  whatever  it  was,  and  functioned 
in  the  drama  of  his  day  only  as  an  incubus,  an  Old  Man  of 
the  Sea,  an  insufferable  tyrant.  He  seized  upon  the 
Shakespearean  form  as  being  free  from  fixed  rules,  a 
flowing  and  plastic  medium  adaptable  to  the  subject 
and  emotions  to  be  presented.  Manzoni's  studies  and 
imitations  of  Shakespeare  let  a  flood  of  light  in  upon  the 
dark  and  difiicult  places  of  Italian  drama.  In  his  "  Letter 
on  the  Unities  of  Time  and  Place"  he  repudiated  these 
unities;  he  redefined  unity  of  action  as  unity  of  effect, 
as  concentration  of  interest,  which  he  pleaded  for  in  place 
of  the  old  narrowing  of  interest  to  a  single  and  self- 
completing  episode. 

In  his  plays  he  puts  his  theory  into  practice,  not  con- 
fining himself  to  presenting  the  catastrophe  in  the  life 
of  his  hero,  but  going  back  in  the  history  of  his  experience 
so  as  to  place  the  disaster  in  its  proper  and  credible 
perspective. 

But  Manzoni,  though  his  face  was  in  the  right  direction, 
toward  the  freedom  of  the  new  form,  kept  many  of  the 
awkward  and  now  atrophied  devices  of  the  classical 
stage  —  choruses,  rhetorical  speeches,  acts  of  God,  and 
the  like. 

To  Manzoni  a  play  was  to  be  not  merely  the  presentation 
of  a  particular  happening  or  the  experience  of  an  ideal 
personage  but  rather  the  representation  of  an  event,  the 
epoch  of  this  event,  the  characters  of  this  epoch,  dis- 
played in  their  climate  and  country.  In  his  own  two 
plays  he  painted  to  the  best  of  his  ability  pictures  of  the 
places  and  the  times  in  which  he  set  his  action,  with  the 
sublime  and  the  ludicrous,  the  beautiful  and  the  ugly. 


18  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

the  graceful  and  the  grotesque  side  by  side  or  mixed 
pele-mele  as  they  are  in  life.  "Contrasts  are  the  life  of 
Art"  is  one  of  his  epigrams,  —  a  doctrine  which  Victor 
Hugo  erected  into  a  supreme  literary  law.  Reading 
II  Conte  di  Carmagnola  and  the  Adelchi  one  gets  the 
impression  of  the  complexity  of  life,  the  bustle  and  huge 
activity  of  people.  Wanting  the  formal  unities  of  the 
classical  play,  the  scenes  are  unconnected,  often  apparently 
unrelated ;  the  plays  seem  to  be  little  more  than  a  string 
of  scenes  as  separable  as  the  beads  of  a  necklace,  but  the 
effect  is  the  effect  of  a  single  whole.  He  achieves  a  unity 
truer  and  larger  than  that  of  any  merely  formal  rules. 

Manzoni's  social  and  political  opinions  are  also  of 
importance  for  drama.  He,  too,  was  set  on  fire  by  the 
humanitarian  teaching  of  the  "Declaration  of  the  Rights 
of  Man",  and  was  filled  with  the  newer  and  broader 
patriotism  which  was  its  outcome.  He  had  spent  the 
formative  years  of  his  life  in  France :  the  terms  of  the 
motto  of  democracy  —  Liberie,  egalite,  fraternite  —  were 
written  deep  in  his  heart.  He  had  come  to  know  some  of 
the  most  advanced  of  French  thinkers,  notably  Fauriel, 
and  under  their  influence  had  acquired  those  principles 
of  equality  and  justice,  that  hatred  of  tyranny  which 
finds  eloquent  words  in  the  choruses  of  the  Adelchi. 
The  common  man  took  on  for  him  the  aspect  of  a  fellow 
human  being,  even  the  aspect  of  a  brother.  To  these 
doctrines  which  he  shared  with  all  revolutionists  he  added 
his  own  particular  fiery  patriotism,  the  product  of  his 
hatred  of  the  Austrians  who  were  crushing  all  Northern 
Italy  under  the  ruthless  Teutonic  heel.  Manzoni  had 
no  desire  for  the  prison  to  which  the  Austrian  censor 
might  so  casually  consign  him.    So  he  is  careful  in  his 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  19 

two  plays  and  in  his  great  novel  I  Promessi  Sposi  to 
veil  his  patriotic  and  democratic  propaganda. 

But  now  and  again  in  his  lyric  pieces  such  as  "  S'Ode  al 
destro  uno  squillo  de  tromba"  in  II  Connie  di  Carmagnola, 
the  great  Lombard  poet  reveals  a  flash  of  his  love  of  Italy, 
of  his  passion  for  democracy,  of  his  proud  scorn  of  the 
foreign  tyrant. 

From  the  point  of  view  of  the  theatre,  Manzoni's  plays, 
while  they  cannot  be  said  to  hold  the  stage,  are  not  devoid 
of  scenes  effective  and  decidedly  well  managed.  The 
Adelchi  in  particular  is  in  some  ways  dramatic  in  a  modern 
way,  and  the  characters  of  the  protagonist  Adelchi  and 
the  heroine  Ermengarda  are  drawn  with  great  beauty  and 
genuine  power.  In  spite,  however,  of  numerous  scenes  of 
true  emotional  value  and  in  spite  of  a  great  deal  of  fine 
poetry  Manzoni  must  in  the  history  of  drama  be  reckoned 
with  and  esteemed  rather  for  his  influence  than  for  his 
absolute  merit.  He  had  the  great  good  fortune  and  the 
adequate  intelligence  to  herald  the  dawn  of  revolt  against 
classical  formalism  and  coldness,  and  to  give  early  expres- 
sion to  the  modem  theories  of  the  presentation  of  life 
on  the  stage,  and  to  stand  for  the  dramatic  proclamation 
of  social  and  political  principles. 

Though  Manzoni  is  the  outstanding  dramatic  writer  of 
Italian  Romanticism,  there  are  others  who  should  be 
mentioned  as  paving  the  way  for  modern  literature. 
Most  of  them  produced  their  major  works  in  other  forms 
of  literature  and  wrote  plays  only  as  secondary  or  sub- 
sidiary. Such  were  Vincenzo  Monti  (1754-1828),  who 
wrote  in  the  tradition  of  Alfieri  and  whose  Caio  Gracco, 
Coriolamis  and  Galeotto  Manfredi  are  some  of  the  best 
and  best  known  romantic  dramas;   Ugo  Foscolo  (1778- 


20  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

1827),  famous  for  his  Byronian  novel  Le  idtime  lettere  di 
Jacopo  Ortis,  who  wrote  Thyesies  (1796),  Ajax  (1811), 
Ricciarda  (1820) ;  Silvio  Pellico,  whose  Francesca  da 
Rimini  was  much  admired  by  Byron  and  remains  to 
this  day  one  of  the  best  dramatizations  of  the  beautiful 
old  story  of  passion  and  pathos ;  the  Pindemonte  brothers, 
Giovanni  (1751-1812)  andlppolito  (1753-1828),  who  were 
active  and  fruitful  imitators  of  Shakespeare. 

Next  to  Manzoni,  however,  the  man  who  stands  out 
above  the  group  is  Giovanni  Battista  Niccolini  (1782- 
1861).  He  was  prominent  enough  to  give  his  name  to  a 
type  of  play.  After  his  tragedy  Nabucco,  the  patriotic 
drama  came  to  be  called  the  "tragedia  Niccoliana."  He 
enjoyed  in  his  own  day  a  most  flattering  success,  which 
may  have  been  due  to  the  popular  nature  of  his  subject 
matter  rather  than  to  the  dramatic  or  poetic  merits  of  his 
plays ;  William  Dean  Howells,  however,  who  has  translated 
parts  of  Niccolini's  best  known  play,  Amaldo  di  Brescia, 
calls  this  play  a  mighty  tragedy. 

Niccolini  began  his  career  with  the  production  of 
pseudo-classic  plays  in  the  manner  of  Alfieri,  Polissena 
(1810)  and  Media  (1812).  But  coming  under  the  in- 
fluence of  revolutionary  reform  ideas  he  wrote  Nabticco 
(1816)  idealizing  the  fall  of  Napoleon  in  a  Babylonian 
tragedy.  His  next  play,  Antonio  Foscarini  (1821),  an 
attack  on  the  Metternichian  administration  in  Italy,  was 
forbidden  by  the  police,  because  of  its  thinly  veiled 
condemnation  of  the  authorities.  Giovanni  da  Procida 
(1830)  contained  an  attack  upon  the  Austrian  oppressors, 
as  did  also  Ludovico  Sforza  (1832)  in  which,  under  the 
thin  pretense  of  picturing  the  miseries  of  Italy  imder  a 
foreign  conqueror  in  the  fifteenth  century,  he  again  deals 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  21 

a  blow  at  the  Teutonic  invader  of  his  own  day.  After 
Rosmunda  d' Inghilterra  (1838)  came  his  masterpiece 
Amaldo  di  Brescia  (1843)  and  Filippo  Strozzi  (1847). 
These  plays  are  meant  rather  to  be  read  than  staged  — 
they  are  dramatic  poems  rather  than  actable  plays. 
Indeed  Amaldo  di  Brescia  is  of  the  nature  of  an  epic.  The 
apotheosis  of  Amaldo  the  fiery  monk  who  defied  his  Pope 
is  so  bold  that  the  play  could  not  be  presented  at  home  for 
many  many  years  after  it  had  appeared  in  France  —  the 
government  feared  and  condemned  the  political  views  it 
expressed.  And  certainly  the  Brescian  monk,  tribune  of 
the  people,  rebel  against  the  Emperor  and  the  Pope, 
political  and  religious  reformer,  invited  interpretation  as 
the  ideal  patriot,  champion  of  the  principle  of  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  people,  advocate  of  the  desti:uction  of  the 
temporal  power  of  the  Pontiff.  If  in  form  it  is  not  adapted 
to  the  theatre  of  any  age,  and  has  not  stood  the  test  of 
presentation,  it  is  nevertheless  a  monument  of  lofty 
poetry. 

Niccolini  was  full  of  zeal  for  the  national  aspirations  of 
Italy  as  a  poet  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Dante  and 
Machiavelli,  and  the  best  of  his  work  has  for  its  purpose 
the  awakening  of  his  country  to  patriotic  fervor.  As  an 
artist  he  was  not  committed  to  the  tenets  of  any  school. 
He  was  not  bound  by  the  conventions  of  formalism ;  and 
although  by  his  training  and  taste  he  was  a  Classicist, 
he  did  not  disdain  the  technic  of  the  Romanticist  when  it 
increased  the  effectiveness  of  his  appeal.  The  main 
thing  to  him  was  not  how  he  made  his  appeal,  but  that  he 
made  it.  He  is  a  bit  worldly-wise,  a  follower  of  the 
fashion,  writing  in  the  romantic  mode  because  it  was  the 
mode  and  made  the  quickest  appeal.    His  theatre  is  a 


22  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

school  of  patriotism,  an  outpouring  of  emotion,  lyric 
rather  than  dramatic,  eloquent  rather  than  analytic. 
These  qualities  he  shared  with  Manzoni,  and  in  him  as  in 
Manzoni  we  may  detect  some  of  the  fundamental  elements 
of  modern  drama,  —  his  disregard  for  rules,  his  patriotic 
nationalism,  his  humanitarian  principles,  his  defiance  of 
all  the  established  orders. 

Luigi  Tonelli  in  his  Evoluzione  del  Teatro  contemporaneo 
in  Italia  sums  up  the  contribution  of  Bomanticism  to  the 
theatre  thus : 

First  as  to  form :  a  greater  liberty,  and  the  abolition 
of  the  unities;  an  almost  rigid  exclusion  of  Greek  and 
Roman  subjects,  and  the  adoption  of  medieval  ones ;  great 
freedom  in  verse  form. 

Second  as  to  content:  a  humanitarian  philosophy,  an 
intensification  and  broadening  of  the  spirit  of  patriotism,  a 
gentle,  suave  feeling  of  sadness.  To  these  we  may  add  a 
greater  attention  to  the  realities  of  life  (the  beginnings  of 
realism)  and  the  discussion  of  contemporary  social  problems. 

But  in  spite  of  these  indications  of  the  advent  of  new 
vigor,  when  we  have  excepted  the  two  plays  of  Manzoni, 
and  three  or  four  of  Niccolini,  Italian  Romanticism  was 
entirely  barren  and  ineffectual  in  the  theatre.  There  is 
not  one  really  great  tragedy  written  in  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  not  one  with  a  broad  sweep  of  idea, 
or  a  deep  reach  of  passion.  The  germs  of  much  excellence 
were  in  them,  but  it  remained  in  germ.  It  was  not  a 
drama-producing  epoch.  It  was  reserved  for  the  men  of 
the  last  half  of  the  century  —  the  Neo-Romanticists  and 
the  true  moderns  —  to  bear  the  fruit.  Niccolini  and 
Manzoni  and  their  coevals  but  cleared  the  ground  for 
Giacosa  and  Bracco. 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  23 

Briefly  so  much  for  the  hterary  ancestry  and  background 
of  the  movement  we  are  to  study ;  and  now  a  still  briefer 
word,  a  mere  reminder  of  the  social  and  political  back- 
ground :  Politically  the  first  half  of  the  century  was  taken 
up  in  Italy  by  the  absorbing  and  often  desperate  struggle 
for  national  independence  and  unity.  The  invaders  had 
to  be  expelled,  —  first  Napoleon  and  then  the  hated 
Austrians  who  occupied  the  whole  valley  of  the  Po. 
The  nation  was  kept  at  white  heat  by  the  tyrannical 
excesses  of  the  conquerors,  and  love  of  country  came  to  be 
the  sole  enthusiasm  of  the  eager  little  nation.  Politics 
was  paramount  and  matters  artistic  and  literary  were  in 
abeyance.  But  with  the  Revolution  and  the  unification  of 
Italy  under  the  house  of  Savoy  and  the  consequent 
resolution  of  all  insistent  political  diflSculties  there  came 
a  great  revival  of  the  arts,  of  drama  together  with  the 
others. 

From  an  intellectual  point  of  view  the  Italian  world 
was  mainly  occupied  at  this  moment  with  the  break-up 
of  the  old  beliefs.  The  political  struggle  of  the  Roman 
Church  to  retain  its  temporal  power  was  but  one  aspect  of 
the  many-sided  conflict  in  which  men's  bitterest  emotions 
took  part.  The  refusal  of  the  Pope  to  recognize  the  sover- 
eignty of  the  King  divided  the  nation  into  two  camps. 

From  the  social  point  of  view  an  analogous  struggle  was 
going  on  between  the  classes.  The  strife  between  classes 
and  masses  and  the  gradual  dawning  of  a  social  conscience, 
—  these  are  the  events  which  the  drama  reflects  during 
the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

The  declaration  of  Italian  unity  brought  in  a  new  era  in 
literature  as  well  as  in  politics.  The  drama  of  this  New 
Italy  period  followed  the  lines  of  the  older  Romanticism ; 


24  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY  i 

there  was  the  same  emphasis  on  the  evocation  of  bygone 
epochs,  on  effect  for  its  own  sake,  on  local  color,  —  and 
each  of  these  became  the  actuating  principle  of  a  type  of 
play.  The  first  called  forth  the  historical  drama,  —  medi- 
eval, classic,  oriental ;  the  second,  melodrama ;  the  third, 
developing  into  pure  realism,  was  the  main  actuating 
motive  of  comedy.  Nevertheless  the  effort  to  produce 
local  color  and  to  achieve  reality  of  portraiture  gives  way 
to  a  practice  which  must  always  prove  and  in  this  case 
does  actually  prove  the  undoing  of  any  body  of  art  in 
which  it  takes  root,  —  the  striving  for  effectiveness  at 
any  cost. 

The  historical  drama  in  its  two  forms  had  the  most  blood 
in  it.  It  was  Leopoldo  Marenco  (1831-1899)  who  set  the 
fashion  of  the  dramma  medievale  with  his  Falconer  of 
Pietro  Ardena  {II  falconiere  di  Pietr^  Ardena,  (1871),  a 
Sevres  china  pastiche  of  the  tenth  century  which  had  an 
immense  popularity  in  the  seventies.  Felice  Cavalotti 
(1842-1898)  who  also  wrote  these  medieval  dramas  — 
notably  The  Vagabonds  (I  Pezzenti)  —  gives  in  the  intro- 
duction to  his  Agnese  the  formula  for  them : 

"The  author  may  depart  from  history  whenever  he 
chooses,  may  invent  on  his  own  initiative  situations, 
personages,  episodes,  just  as  the  impressions  of  his  mind 
and  the  contrasts  of  passions  dictate ;  intent  on  represent- 
ing on  the  stage  more  than  historical  facts,  not  an  historical 
epoch,  nor  historical  characters,  but  an  'episodio  intimo', 
one  of  these  pitiful  dramas  of  the  heart  which  belong  to 
all  countries  and  all  ages."  '  " 

A  critic  need  not  be  merely  captious  to  say  concerning 
this :  "  Very  well !  But  why,  then,  this  apparatus  of 
history  and  local  color  ? "    One  may  add  that  it  takes  a 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  25 

master  and  a  scholar  to  fill  a  medieval  setting  with 
medieval  psychology,  and  since  the  writers  of  the  drammi 
medievale  were  neither,  the  historical  setting  is  the  merest 
paper  and  the  dramma  medievale  as  such  mere  sham. 

Besides  Cavalotti  and  Marenco  the  best  known  of  the 
contemporaries  of  Cossa  who  wrote  historical  dramas 
were  Angelo  de  Gubernatis  (1840-1913),  the  oriental 
scholar,  whose  eastern  dramas  were  drawn  from  the 
sacred  books  of  Persia  and  India :  King  Nala  (1868) ;  a 
trilogy  The  Death  of  Dararata  (1868),  Maja  (1869),  and 
Buddha  (1872).  It  is  said  that  Wagner  seriously  con- 
sidered these  plays  as  a  text  for  an  operatic  trilogy. 

There  was  Giovanni  Bovio  (1841-1903),  the  famous 
philosopher  who  wrote  plays  on  religious  subjects.  Saint 
Paid,  Christ  at  the  Feast  of  Purim,  and  a  Socrates.  There 
were  Domenico  Bolognese,  with  Cleopatra;  Caina,  Pro- 
meteo;  Gamboni,  Bianca  della  Porta;  S.  Morelli,  Harduin 
da  Ivrea. 

It  is  Pietro  Cossa  that  stands  out  as  the  commanding 
figure  of  this  epoch  of  the  Italian  theatre :  he  was  the  first 
genuine  man  of  the  theatre  of  the  nineteenth  century,  the 
first  to  say  "The  play's  the  thing."  The  plays  of  his 
predecessors  stood  the  test  of  the  library  but  turned  heavy 
or  flabby  under  the  tests  of  the  stage.  With  Cossa  the 
case  is  in  some  sense  reversed.  Though  Nerone  (1871), 
Plautus  and  his  Century  (Plauio  e  il  stto  secolo)  (1872), 
Messalina  and  The  Neapolitans  of  1799  (I  Napolitani  del 
1799)  (1880)  are  not  badly  written  they  do  not  bear  the 
scrutiny  of  the  critic  in  his  armchair ;  they  are  not  logi- 
cally constructed,  not  coherently  organized ;  the  verse  is 
poor ;  he  commits  some  of  the  worst  excesses  of  the  Neo- 
Romantics.    It  is  the  glare  of  the  footlights  that  throws 


26  THE  CONTEMPOHARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

the  defects  into  the  shadow  and  brings  their  compensating 
qualities  into  relief.  One  sees  their  swift  and  certain 
movement,  their  economy  of  means,  their  telling  char- 
acterization, their  powerful  situations,  and  is  prepared 
to  say  that  while  Cossa  may  not  be  a  great  poet,  or 
a  powerful  thinker,  he  is  preeminently  a  dramatic  crafts- 
man. 

Nero  is  in  many  respects  Cossa's  best  play  and  remains 
almost  a  great  play.  Masterly  in  stagecraft,  and  in  its 
atmosphere  a  bitter  satire,  it  falls  short  of  greatness 
merely  by  Cossa's  own  failure  to  be  great  —  for  it  gives 
the  full  measure  of  his  artistic  stature.  He  takes  as  the 
theme  of  the  play  and  uses  as  his  point  of  departure  the 
famous  speech  of  the  dying  Nero  :  "  Qualis  artifex  pereo." 
He  avoids  the  Nero  tradition  of  the  inhuman  monster  of 
wickedness  and  says,  "  I  show  him  not  as  Emperor  but  as 
artist."  About  this  Nero  and  his  court  Cossa  throws 
a  brilliant  atmosphere  of  reality,  which  is  called  by  Bene- 
detto Croce,  in  his  masterly  study  of  Cossa,  the  chief 
merit  of  the  play.  It  is,  he  says,  "  il  verismo  storico "  — 
historical  naturalism  —  and  Croce  calls  Cossa  a  precursor 
of  the  school  that  goes  by  the  name  of  Verist,  whose  artistic 
creed  is  crystalized  in  Emile  Zola's  famous  phrase  "Art 
is  life  seen  through  a  temperament."  "His  vision  of 
history  corresponded  in  many  aspects  to  that  view  of  life 
and  society  taken  by  the  Verists"  is  the  way  Croce  puts  it, 
and  he  really  had  an  unusual  faculty  for  weaving  together 
truth  and  invention,  fact  and  simulation  into  a  smooth 
and  organic  fabric  that  gives  the  illusion  of  life.  In  addi- 
tion he  had  a  gift  for  seizing  and  comprehending  moods  and 
types  in  history  and  transporting  them  to  the  modern 
stage.    Add  to  this  the  fact  that  he  was  a  born  dramatist, 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  27 

sure  of  touch  and  keen  of  sight  for  a  genuine  effect,  and 
you  have  the  list  of  his  virtues. 

Besides  Nero  one  is  tempted  to  single  out  for  mention 
Messalina,  called  by  some  critics  his  best,  and  Cleopatra,  in 
connection  with  which  Costetti  has  not  hesitated  to 
mention  the  name  of  Shakespeare. 

As  poet  Cossa  seldom  rose  above  the  level  of  mediocrity, 
but  his  average  verse  is  quite  well  suited  to  dramatic 
dialogue.  Like  Sem  Benelli  of  more  recent  times,  he 
meant  his  verse  to  be  spoken  and  to  be  understood  at 
one  repetition,  and  its  level  mediocrity  guaranteed  this. 
It  had,  too,  a  quality  badly  needed  at  this  time  by  the 
Italian  drama,  —  a  certain  masculinity  and  ruggedness, 
most  acceptable  after  the  sugar-and-water  dialogue  of 
Marenco  and  Cavalotti. 

It  is  an  honor  to  assume  as  one's  own  the  summary 
of  so  great  a  critic  as  Croce,  whose  judgment  of  Cossa 
will  probably  stand  the  test  of  time:  "But  the  defects 
that  we  have  seen  in  Pietro  Cossa  do  not  take  from  him 
the  place  he  deserves  in  our  literature.  He  pursued  faith- 
fully an  artistic  ideal  which  was  determined  by  one  aspect  of 
our  modern  historical  thought,  and  will  be  remembered  as 
the  author  of  one  very  uncommon  work,  —  Nerone." 

While  the  historical  play  in  its  various  varieties  was  the 
most  characteristic  product  of  Italian  Neo-Romanticism, 
the  pastoral  play  was,  fortunately,  confined  to  the  sixties 
and  seventies.  Marenco,  just  as  he  had  invented  the 
Dramma  medievale,  boasts  that  with  his  Marcellina 
(1860),  Giorgio  Gandi  (1861)  and  Celeste  (1866)  he  set  a 
fashion  and  wrote  the  first  of  a  long  line  of  similar  plays. 
Indeed  they  did  start  a  type  of  drama  as  false  to  life  as 
it  was  to  art. 


28  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

The  Italian  critic  Ferrigni,  whose  nom  de  plume  is 
Yorick,  writes  of  this  pastoral  strain  :  "  The  stage  became 
a  nest  of  doves  and  pigeons,  poetic  language  reduced  itself 
to  a  continuous  round  of  sonnets  and  madrigals  and  on 
the  boards  of  the  stage  there  came  into  being  a  whole  ant- 
hill of  dramas,  pretty  childish  things,  full  of  baby  lovers." 
The  theatre  swarmed  with  oppressed  maidens,  virtuous 
brigands,  philosophical  shepherds  and  platitudinous  old 
men,  with  storms  and  sheep  and  revelations  from  Heaven ; 
there  was  in  fact  a  recrudescence  of  the  "Arcadian" 
spirit  of  the  eighteenth  century  whose  preciosity  Goldoni 
had  satirized.  The  same  motives  which  in  America 
inspired  the  New  England  farm  drama  found  their  expres- 
sion in  Italy  in  the  pastoral  plays  of  Marenco  and  his 
followers. 

Paolo  Giacometti  (1816-1882),  though  the  best  of  them, 
serves  to  represent  a  large  group  of  writers  who  flourished 
at  this  time,  whose  cry  was  sensation,  and  whose  effort 
was  solely  for  effect,  —  the  large  group  of  melodramatists. 
He  may  be  taken  as  speaking  for  them  all  when  he  says 
in  the  preface  to  his  selected  Works :  "  I  have  written 
rather  for  the  populace  than  for  the  erudite  and  I  had  as 
a  motto,  'Let  us  cultivate  pure  effect,  let  us  multiply 
powerful  effects.'"  In  his  comedy  The  Poet  and  the 
Dancing  Girl  the  poet  makes  the  following  declaration, 
under  circumstances  which  lead  us  to  regard  it  as  Gia- 
cometti's  own  mind :  "  In  the  present  critical  circum- 
stances of  our  theatre  I  said  to  myself,  'The  public  has 
had  enough  of  man  as  he  really  is ;  now  we  have  to  move 
it  with  passions.  Is  the  reign  of  beauty  passed?  Very 
well,  then  let  us  turn  to  the  ugly,  making  in  this  way 
another  dramatic  world.'    With  this  profession  of  faith 


THE  FOUNDATIONS  29 

I  began  to  read  Victor  Hugo,  Ducange,  Dumas;  then  I 
saw  easily  that  by  dint  of  creating  seduced  ladies,  illegiti- 
mate children,  deceived  husbands  .  .  .  poisons,  daggers, 
assassinations,  stranglings,  ghosts,  butchers  and  grave- 
diggers,  one  could  become  a  dramatic  author,  —  that  is 
to  say,  with  some  new  and  original  ideas  scattered  here 
and  there." .  Satiric  as  this  passage  is  it  contains  the 
kernel  of  Giacometti's  work,  —  the  dreary  old  effort  at 
effect  for  effect's  sake. 

He  is  put  in  the  front  rank  of  melodramatic  playwrights 
by  his  two  plays  Maria  Antonietta,  Regina  di  Francia  and 
La  Morte  Civile,  which  Tonelli  calls  the  most  notable  works 
of  Italian  basso  romanticismo.  The  latter  was  particularly 
important.  When  it  was  first  given  in  Paris,  l^mile 
Zola  praised  it  for  its  belle  nvdiie;  by  which  he  meant  its 
stark  truthfulness,  its  absence  of  flom-ish,  its  economy  of 
means,  its  simplicity  of  action.  Add  to  this  the  fact  that 
the  play,  concerning  itself  with  criminology  and  penal 
conditions,  is  one  of  the  very  first  reform  dramas  in  the 
modern  sense,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  why  Zola 
loved  it.  The  action  centers  around  the  tragic  figure  of 
Corrado,  the  escaped  convict,  and  nearly  every  great 
actor  of  the  last  half  century  has  the  part  in  his  repertory. 
The  role  runs  nearly  the  gamut  of  shivers  and  thrills,  — 
Corrado  is  the  greatest  of  Italian  "bravos." 

The  other  plays  of  Giacometti,  and  there  are  nearly  a 
hundred,  have  all  disappeared  from  the  boards  with  the 
actors  for  whom  they  were  written.  He  was  not  a  great 
dramatist,  but  he  was  a  good  craftsman. 

The  critic  Yorick  in  La  Morte  d'una  Musa  describes  the 
melodrama  thus:  "Who  does  not  remember  the  seduc- 
tions, the  violence,  the  ravishings,  the  private  dungeons, 


30  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

the  stealing  of  documents,  of  plans,  of  pocketbooks ;  the 
escapes,  the  house-breakings,  the  false  keys,  and  forgeries, 
of  which  the  gentlemen  of  the  lachrymose  drama,  the  noble 
ladies  of  lachrymose  comedy,  all  the  knights  and  viscounts 
of  melodrama,  rendered  themselves  guilty  before  the 
jury  of  cultured  listeners,  only  because  they  wore  evening 
clothes  and  knew  how  to  put  on  their  gloves  ?  And  who 
can  tell  how  unhappy  and  angelically  spotless  were  the 
seamstresses  in  theatrical  attics;  how  tender  and  gentle 
of  heart  the  stonemasons  and  carpenters  on  the  boards; 
what  worthy  consciences  were  possessed  by  the  garbage 
men,  and  with  what  white  stoles  of  innocence  the  chimney 
sweeps  of  the  Val  d'Aosta  clad  themselves,  the  coalmen 
of  the  Maremma,  the  miners  of  Leghorn  and  of  Genoa, 
the  modistes  of  Florence  and  Milan  ?  "  Is  not  all  this 
full  of  reminders  of  Charles  Dickens?  And  indeed  the 
serious  drama  in  Italy  did  at  this  time  perform  a  func- 
tion kindred  to  that  performed  by  the  English  novelist, 
creating  a  social  consciousness  and  awakening  a  social 
conscience. 

It  was  Paolo  Giacometti  who  produced  what  we  are 
justified  in  calling  the  first  comedy  of  manners  of  the  modern 
school,  a  play  which  he  assures  us  is  an  etude  sur  le  vif, 
and  a  picture  of  manners  or  satire  in  dialogue  rather  than 
a  comedy  —  The  Poet  and  the  Dancing  Girl  {11  Poeta  e  la 
Ballerina).  Add  to  this  the  fact  that,  as  he  says,  "I 
scourged  vice  without  stint",  and  you  have  in  this  play 
the  dominant  working  principles  of  contemporary  drama, 
—  realism  and  social  criticism.  It  shows  the  ruin  and 
degradation  of  a  poet,  a  sensitive  soul,  and  the  complete 
prostitution  of  his  talent  under  the  influence  of  an  un- 
worthy woman,  an  actress.    Giacometti's  other  comedies. 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  31 

most  of  them  in  the  Goldonian  manner,  never  rise  above 
mediocrity- 
Felice  Cavalotti  wrote  comedies  also,  his  The  Song  of 
Songs  and  Love  Letters,  delightful  and  flimsy  pieces,  still 
being  seen  occasionally;  but  with  Paolo  Ferrari,  Achille 
Torelli,  Del  Testa  and  Martini  comedy  really  anticipates 
the  modern  movement.  That  realism  which  is  latent  in 
the  historical  plays  and  melodramas  becomes  vocal  in 
the  comedies. 

The  plays  of  Paolo  Ferrari  (1822-1889)  fall  inevitably 
into  three  groups :  in  the  first  historical  plays,  in  the 
manner  of  Goldoni  in  which  Ferrari  did  his  most  expert 
work,  producing  two  masterpieces  Goldoni  and  his  Sixteen 
New  Comedies  (Goldoni  e  le  sue  sedici  commedie  nuove) 
(1852)  and  Satire  and  Parini  {La  Satira  e  Parini  (1856)) 
both  on  subjects  derived  from  Italian  literary  history ;  in 
the  second  group  are  plays  of  popular  inspiration  and  of 
contemporary  life,  A  Sick  Girl's  Medicine  (La  medecina 
d'onna  ragazza  amaleda)  and  Uncle  Venanzio's  Will  (II 
Codicillo  del  Zio  Venanzio) ;  in  the  third  group,  under 
the  inspiration  of  Augier,  Dumas  fils  and  Pailleron,  he 
goes  frankly  over  to  the  'piece  a  these  with  Prose  (Prosa) 
(1867),  The  Duel  (Duello)  (1868)  in  which  he  justifies  the 
abominable  custom.  Ridicule  (Ridicolo)  (1872),  and  other 
plays  of  the  same  type.  The  key  to  Ferrari's  work  and  at 
the  same  time  a  matter  of  significant  import  to  the  literary 
historian  is  this :  from  the  beginning  and  all  through  his 
work  he  is  concerned  with  morality ;  he  is  an  inveterate 
teacher,  an  incurable  critic.  Croce  says  of  him,  "  Ferrari 
had  no  other  Muse;  morality  made  him  a  dramatist, 
just  as  love  or  indignation  have  made  dramatists  of 
others."    However,  to  the  modern  student  of  society  and 


32  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

ethics  he  takes  a  topsy-turvy  view  of  morality.  To  him 
it  is  synonymous  with  social  custom.  Instead  of  appealing 
from  convention  in  the  name  of  the  rights  and  privileges 
of  the  single  soul  he  justifies  and  glorifies  things  as  they 
are,  condemning  the  rebel  not  the  law.  The  typical 
Ferrari  comedy  consists  of  this :  a  theme  more  or  less 
moral  (from  his  point  of  view)  is  worked  out  with  a 
technic  which  is  a  combination  of  the  conventional  Italian 
comedy  with  realistic  details.  He  has  undoubted  power 
to  create  real  types.  His  contribution  to  the  theatre 
was  that  he  domiciled  the  realistic  movement  in  its 
first  manifestation;  he  redigested  French  realism  and 
made  it  Italian  and  he  wrote  half  a  dozen  delightful 
dramas. 

Other  writers  of  comedy  were  numerous,  but  one  may 
single  out  for  special  mention  Vincenzo  Martini,  author 
of  The  Crook  {II  Cavalier e  d'industria)  (1854),  a  piece  of 
original  observation  of  extraordinary  vivacity;  Luigi 
Suner,  a  Cuban  settled  in  Florence,  who  wrote  The 
Speculating  Gentlemen  (7  Gentiluomini  specidatori)  (1859) ; 
Riccardo  Castelvecchio,  who  is  remembered  for  his  Goldo- 
nian  plays  The  Romantic  WoTnan  {La  Donna  romantica) 
and  The  Clever  Chamher-Maid  {La  Cameriera  astuta) ; 
Tommaso  Gherardi  del  Testa  (1818-1880),  who  by  his 
clear  and  elegant  style  and  his  facility  at  writing  dialogue 
put  new  life  into  the  banalities  and  threadbare  situations 
of  the  old  style  comedies.  The  Reign  of  Adelaide  {II 
regno  di  Adelaide),  Lucretia's  System  {II  sistema  di 
Lucrezia),  The  New  Life  {La  Vita  Nuova)  and  above  all 
The  Second  Wife  {La  Donna  in  Seconde  Nozze)  all  crowded 
the  theatres  of  the  seventies. 

AchilleTorelli's  (1844-         )  finest  play  and  greatest  sue- 


THE   FOUNDATIONS  33 

cess  was  his  delightful  comedy,  Husbands  (7  Mariii)  (1867). 
This  drama  two  of  his  critics,  Jean  Dornis  and  L.  Tonelli, 
call  the  first  Italian  play  with  modern  technic,  i.e.  that 
approaches  the  slice  of  life  theory  of  the  naturalists,  and 
Tonelli  further  judges  it  to  be  "  one  of  the  few  real  Italian 
dramatic  masterpieces  of  the  last  century."  Torelli's 
main  emphasis  was  not  on  intrigue  or  situation,  but  on  the 
display  of  various  kinds  of  husbands,  the  rude  and  dis- 
solute, the  jealous,  the  noble  and  correct,  the  lovable 
and  tactful.  Torelli,  though  he  wrote  other  plays,  is 
remembered  mainly  for  this  one,  which  is  frequently 
revived,  always  with  astonished  wonder  at  its  perennial 
newness.  It  is  a  play  genuinely  modern  in  spirit  and  shows 
a  distinct  advance  in  technic  over  Cossa,  Ferrari,  Gia- 
cometti  and  their  contemporaries. 

The  Italian  drama  at  the  middle  of  the  eighties  had 
arrived  at  a  point  where  it  was  ripe  for  the  modern 
movement.  Romanticism  contained  the  germs  of  it, 
Neo-Romanticism  developed  some  of  these  germs  and  now 
it  was  ready  to  burst  into  blossom  in  the  work  of  Giacosa, 
of  Verga,  of  Capuana.  The  realism  of  Torelli  and  Ferrari 
gives  place  to  the  naturalism  of  the  Veristi.  The  theatri- 
cal art,  thanks  to  Manzoni  and  Niccolini,  was  untram- 
meled  by  the  canons  of  a  worn-out  technic.  It  had 
passed  through  the  stage  of  sentimental  effectiveness 
in  Marenco,  in  Cossa  and  Giacometti.  The  exploita- 
tion of  the  national  past  was  no  longer  satisfying  to 
an  increasingly  intelligent  public,  which  more  and  more 
demanded  discussion  and  solution  of  vital  questions  and 
urgent  problems. 

Literature  from  being  subjective  had  become  objective, 
from  being  lyric  and  epic  had  become  analytical  and 


34  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

scientific.  Romanticism  and  Neo-Romanticism,  each 
containing  the  realism  of  the  moderns,  now  gave  place  to 
the  reproduction  of  life  and  the  discussion  of  problems ; 
the  man  who  is  the  epitome  of  this  development  is 
Giuseppe  Giacosa. 


CHAPTER  II 

Giuseppe  Giacosa 

The  work  of  Giuseppe  Giacosa  links  together  in  a  very 
interesting  way  the  old  and  the  new  manners  in  Italian 
drama.  He  began  as  a  writer  of  verse  plays,  of  delicate 
trifles,  of  medieval  saynetes,  of  adventure  plays  after  the 
model  of  Marenco's;  later  he  became  a  Verist  writing 
on  the  formula  of  Henri  Becque  and  finally  a  Realist  in  the 
manner  of  Emile  Augier.  Now  while  is  it  true  that  three 
changes  of  manner  within  an  artistic  lifetime  are  a  bit 
confusing  and  create  an  atmosphere  of  fragmentariness, 
it  is  also  true  in  Giacosa's  case  that  it  enhances  his  value 
and  his  interest  to  the  literary  historian ;  for  he  reflects 
to  a  nicety  the  varying  dramatic  taste  of  his  time.  His 
changes  from  A  Game  of  Chess  to  Surrender  at  Discretion, 
that  is  to  say  from  romanticism  to  realism,  from  realism 
to  verism,  as  in  Sad  Loves,  from  verism  to  idealistic 
realism,  as  in  As  the  Leaves  and  The  Stronger,  reflect  with 
precision  the  evolution  of  public  taste  and  the  fluctuations 
in  the  world  of  art  of  the  twenty-five  years  from  1880  to 
1905.  It  might  be  well  to  point  out  just  here  that  in 
connection  with  this  aspect  of  Giacosa's  history  one  could 
put  a  finger  on  his  weakest  spot ;  the  very  thing  that  in- 
sured his  popularity  was  an  indication  of  his  fundamental 
lack  of  originality :  he  was  a  follower,  never  a  pioneer. 
He  interpreted  his  age,  yes,  but  well  after  the  epoch- 


36  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

making  cat  had  jumped.  His  mind  was  sensitive  to  the 
intangible  prophecies  of  fashion,  clear  in  observation, 
keen  in  analysis.  Perhaps  these  qualities  preclude  genu- 
ine creativeness  or  philosophical  speculation. 

And  if  Giacosa  was  not  a  pioneer,  if  he  blazed  no  trails, 
he  broadened  and  smoothed  the  paths  others  had  made 
into  highroads  along  which  humanity  may  travel  with  ease 
and  delight.  Others  had  been  before  him  in  the  writing 
of  medieval  legends,  but  none  of  them  has  equaled  in 
charm  A  Game  of  Chess  or  The  Red  Count;  the  Verist 
movement  was  well  under  way  when  Sad  Loves  appeared, 
yet  that  play  is  acknowledged  as  a  type ;  the  excitement 
about  Verism  had  waned  when  he  produced  As  the  Leaves, 
which  may  be  called  the  masterpiece  of  idealistic  realism 
in  Italy. 

Giuseppe  Giacosa  was  born  October  21,  1847,  at  Colle- 
retta-Parella  in  Piedmont.  His  father,  an  eminent 
advocate,  destined  him  for  the  robe  and  sent  him  to  the 
University  for  training.  Giuseppe  made  a  very  poor 
lawyer,  however,  and  his  father,  with  unusual  forbearance 
and  foresight,  gave  him  several  months  in  which  to  find 
himself  and  decide  on  a  career.  During  the  year  1870- 
1871,  the  young  Giuseppe  devoted  himself  to  writing  and 
produced  his  first  play,  one  act  in  verse  entitled  A  Game 
of  Chess.  This  little  gem,  first  played  in  the  private 
theatre  of  a  noble  amateur,  had  so  striking  a  success 
that  it  was  soon  produced  on  the  commercial  stage  and 
toured  Italy  with  unfailing  applause.  This  success  de- 
termined Giacosa  to  make  the  theatre  and  literature  his 
life  work. 

He  describes  in  a  letter  "SuUa  giovane  letteraiura 
iorinese"  his  life  in  the  Savoy  an  capital,  in  which  he  had 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  37 

taken  residence,  —  from  his  account  an  almost  Parisian 
round  of  theatres,  cafes  and  balls  in  the  company  of  men 
of  like  tastes  and  aspirations.  In  particular  he  came  to 
know  at  this  time  Edmondo  de  Amicis.  Apparently  only 
the  restlessness  of  youth  terminated  his  stay  in  Turin ;  he 
had  become  well  known  as  a  writer  and  lecturer  when  he 
moved  to  Milan. 

Here  his  literary  friendships  were  most  distinguished 
and  very  important  for  him  as  a  man  of  letters.  One  such 
friend  was  Arrigo  Boito,  poet,  musician  and  philosopher; 
another  was  Giovanni  Pascoli,  the  poet. 

Giacosa  became  director  of  the  Accademia  del  filo- 
drammatici;  like  so  many  of  his  literary  confreres  he 
went  more  and  more  into  journalism.  In  1891  he  visited 
the  United  States,  coming  in  the  train  of  Sarah  Bern- 
hardt, who  was  touring  the  States  with  his  Lady  of  Chal- 
lant.  This  journey  he  describes  in  a  volume  of  essays,  — 
Impressioni  d' America. 

As  President  of  the  Society  of  Authors  and  as  one  of 
the  most  popular  lecturers  in  the  Peninsula,  he  was  very 
busy.  Nor  was  he  idle  as  a  dramatist,  as  is  witnessed  by 
the  fact  that  play  after  play  was  written  between  1880- 
1895.  In  fact,  the  bulk  of  Giacosa's  work,  though  not 
his  best  efforts,  lies  within  this  period. 

In  the  later  years  of  his  life  he  collaborated  on  the 
famous  journal,  the  Corriere  delta  Sera;  in  1901  he  founded 
La  Lettera,  the  literary  supplement  to  the  Corriere  which 
he  edited  until  his  death,  which  occurred  September  2, 
1906.  He  had  long  suffered  from  a  hopeless  cardiac 
malady.  He  died  a  famous  man  and  was  mourned  by  all 
Italy. 

Although    Giacosa    wrote    in    many    forms  —  essays, 


38  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

criticism,  stories,  books  of  travel,  such  as  I  Castelli  Valdo- 
stani  e  Canovesi,  showing  fine  appreciation  and  sound 
knowledge  of  archseology  —  still  his  real  passion  was  for 
the  stage,  and  to  the  drama  he  devoted  his  best  efiforts. 

A  discussion  of  Giacosa's  dramatic  work  falls  rather 
naturally  into  two  parts,  since  this  division  represents  a 
genuine  cleavage  in  his  performance.  One  part  concerns 
itself  with  the  lyrical  plays  and  the  historical  plays, 
which  are  for  the  most  part  in  verse;  the  other  concerns 
itself  with  the  comedies  and  the  dramas  of  contemporary 
life. 

A  Game  of  Chess  (Una  Partita  a  scacchi)  (1871)  can 
scarcely  be  called  a  play  in  a  technical  sense  but  is  rather 
what  the  French  call  a  sayrt^te,  a  delightful  idyl  in  the 
manner  of  Longinus  placed  in  a  medieval  setting.  It  is 
filled  with  the  spirit  of  youth,  the  love  of  adventure, 
romantic  love,  expressed  in  gay  and  fluent  verse.  The 
simplicity  and  purity,  the  gentle  melancholy,  while  still 
the  tradition  of  the  drama  in  verse,  had  nevertheless  a 
something  different  about  them  that  was  like  a  breath  of 
pure  fresh  air  in  the  hectic  overloaded  atmosphere  of 
the  Marenco-Giacometti-Ferrari  school  of  drama.  Gia- 
cosa  offered  no  manipulated  historical  truth,  but  frankly 
ventured  forth  into  the  realm  of  the  imagination.  The 
situations  and  characters  are  false  to  life  but  true  to  art. 
Because  of  its  disingenuousness  and  youthful  vitality  the 
little  piece  took  Italy  by  storm. 

The  plot  of  A  Game  of  Chess  Giacosa  took  bodily  from 
the  old  French  romance  of  Hvxm  de  Bordeaux,  adapting  it 
in  details  for  modern  consumption.  It  is  a  variation  on 
an  old  theme,  —  the  hero  winning  the  heroine  by  the  per- 
formance of  a  diflBcult  task.    The  prologue  is  delightful, 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  39 

setting  the  tone  of  the  play,  telling  of  the  inception  and 
conception  of  the  scene.  It  is  like  an  act  from  a  play  of 
Alfred  de  Musset  in  which  the  scene  is  ou  Von  toudra. 
Giacosa's  verse  is  agile,  swift,  pliable,  remarkably  well 
suited  to  the  ideas  and  feelings  to  be  expressed. 

An  old  Duke  Rene  and  his  lovely  daughter,  lolande, 
live  alone  in  a  wild  old  castle.  To  visit  them  comes  an  old 
friend,  bringing  with  him  a  handsome  and  brave  young 
page,  Fernando.  The  youth  is  courageous  and  proud 
but  so  boastful  that  at  last  Rene  offers  him  a  test.  He  is 
to  play  chess  with  lolande,  who  has  vanquished  all 
opponents  at  the  game.  If  he  loses  he  is  to  forfeit  his 
head,  if  he  wins  he  is  to  wed  the  maiden.  Fernando  has 
meanwhile  lost  his  heart  to  lolande  and  eagerly  accepts 
the  offer.  The  play  begins.  Fernando  loses  and  keeps 
losing.  lolande  cries,  "Of  what  are  you  dreaming, 
Page?  You  do  not  play  and  you  do  not  speak."  Fer- 
nando replies,  "I  am  looking  into  your  eyes  that  are  so 
beautiful."  lolande  is  troubled.  She  too  begins  to  feel 
the  charm  of  her  opponent's  youth  and  beauty  and  finds 
herself  in  love  with  the  young  man.  Now  she  tries  to 
lose.  She  plays  for  him  and  at  a  critical  moment  of 
the  game  she  takes  his  hand  in  hers  and  makes  for  him 
the  move  that  checkmates  her,  winning  for  him  the  game 
and  her  hand.  Her  father  cannot  understand  her  losing, 
but  she  consoles  him  :  "  The  victor  is  in  the  family,  so  there 
is  no  misalliance."  A  Game  of  Chess  is,  as  may  be  gath- 
ered, merely  a  dainty  trifle,  but  after  the  violent  passions 
of  the  Neo-Romantics,  it  was  welcomed  with  an  appre- 
ciation and  relief  that  amounted  to  a  furor.  It  still  re- 
mains the  most  popular  of  plays  for  amateurs  in  Italy. 

The   Triumph  of  Love  {II   TrUmfo  d'Amore,  leggenda 


40  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF   ITALY 

drammatica  in  due  atti)  (1875)  is  in  the  same  tone  and 
concerns  itself  with  a  very  similar  situation.  Diana 
d'Alteno,  having  been  witness  of  the  marital  unhappiness 
of  her  sisters,  swears  to  remain  unmarried.  She  cannot 
keep  her  vow,  however,  for  she  feels  that  she  cannot  let 
the  great  and  noble  family,  which  she  represents,  die  out. 
She  will  accept  as  her  husband  the  man  who  can  van- 
quish her  in  a  battle  of  wits.  Suitors  are  numerous,  all 
being  vanquished,  however,  until  a  certain  Ugo  di  Mon- 
soprano  appears.  He  loves  Diana  for  her  own  sake.  He 
wins  in  the  contest,  and  she  declares  herself  his :  "  You 
have  won;  I  am  your  servant."  But  Ugo  will  have 
none  of  such  a  bargain  or  such  a  triumph.  He  will  not 
take  her  unless  she  wants  him,  and  he  goes  off  leaving 
Diana  to  ponder  over  her  conqueror.  Little  by  little, 
hurt  by  his  scorn  of  her,  fascinated  by  the  memory  of  his 
intelligence  and  his  noble  bearing,  she  falls  in  love  with  the 
man  who  jilted  her.  When  an  aged  pilgrim  appears  at 
the  castle  gate,  giving  news  of  Ugo  who,  he  says,  is  about 
to  be  married  to  a  beautiful  maiden,  Diana's  dismay  and 
grief  reveal  her  true  emotions.  Upon  which  the  pilgrim, 
casting  off  his  cowl  and  cassock,  appears  as  the  valiant 
young  knight,  Ugo  di  Monsoprano  himself. 

These  two  plays  may  be  classed  together  as  romantic 
idyls  of  the  Middle  Ages,  delicate  in  fancy,  dainty, 
owing  little  to  reality.  Nothing  could  be  less  lifelike 
than  this  papier-mache  and  Sevres  china  Middle  Ages, 
false  to  nature  and  false  to  psychology.  But  Giacosa  was 
making  no  attempt  at  anything  so  serious  as  truth.  His 
ideal  was  that  which  he  attributes  to  Goldoni  in  his  verse, 
"Prolog  for  a  monument  to  Goldoni." 

"Thus  from  the  multiform  aspects  of  the  idea  there 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  41 

grew  up  with  renewed  vigor  an  art  which  was  alive,  rich, 
varied  as  life  itself.  We  were  ingenuous,  I  admit,  and  it 
used  to  be  said  that  the  theatre  was  to  amuse.  Social 
problems  were  not  solved  there,  nor  were  theatres  changed 
into  hospitals  for  diseases  of  the  mind.  It  may  seem 
exaggeration,  but  now  and  then  there  were  good  people 
on  the  stage." 

This  was  his  ideal  in  1877,  —  to  amuse ;  in  later  life 
it  became  just  what  he  repudiates  in  this  gently  ironic 
passage,  —  social  criticism. 

^leanwhile,  however,  he  felt  that  the  field  of  the  Middle 
Ages  was  not  yet  exhausted.  He  produced  several  his- 
torical plays  in  the  next  fifteen  years.  The  Red  Count, 
The  Brother s-in- Arms,  The  Lady  of  Challant,  all  historical 
plays  dealing  with  the  Renaissance  and  the  Middle  Ages. 

The  first  of  these.  The  Brothers-in-Arms  {II  fratello 
d'armi)  (1877),  is  considered  a  very  good  play  of  the 
bombastic,  pseudo-medieval  type.  A  change  in  Giacosa's 
manner  is  immediately  evident.  He  has  left  the  idyl 
and  is  writing  plays  in  the  narrower  sense,  conflicts  of 
character,  tense  situations,  complicated  intrigue.  He 
has  abandoned  altogether  his  dreamy  and  enchanting  tone 
for  one  of  more  violence,  but  no  more  reality.  Valfredo 
di  Anindello  and  Ugone  di  Soana,  although  hereditary 
enemies,  had  become  brothers-in-arms  after  Valfredo  had, 
by  his  gallantry,  saved  Ugone's  life  in  the  Crusades. 
Bona,  the  terrible  sister  of  Ugone  —  licentious,  lustful, 
unscrupulous,  cruel  —  is  smitten  with  Valfredo  who  has, 
however,  given  his  heart  to  a  captive  maiden,  Berta,  who 
loves  him  in  return.  Unluckily  Ugone  also  loves  Berta, 
so  that  he  is  ready  to  listen  to  the  promptings  of  his  wicked 
sister,  jealous  of  Berta.    He  casts  the  lovers  into  prison 


42  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

and  gives  them  into  the  power  of  Bona.  All  seems  lost, 
but  she  is  wooed  to  clemency  by  Fiorela,  a  minstrel,  and 
she  frees  Berta.  Meanwhile  Ugone's  enemies,  Valfredo's 
family,  have  succeeded  in  entering  the  castle  by  a  secret 
passage  which  leads,  mirabile  dictu!  into  the  dungeon 
where  Valfredo  is  confined.  He,  faithful  rather  to  his 
vow  to  his  brother-in-arms  than  to  his  family,  re- 
nouncing the  hope  of  freedom  and  love,  shouts  an  alarm 
and  perishes  at  the  hands  of  his  infuriated  kinsmen. 
Ugone,  repentant,  realizing  now  too  late  the  fidelity 
and  purity  of  his  sworn  brother,  cries  to  his  followers  to 
let  the  enemy  enter  without  resistance,  resolving  that  the 
castle  itself  shall  be  a  tomb  for  Valfredo  and  its  destruc- 
tion expiate  his  own  cruelty. 

While  he  was  occupied  with  these  verse  plays,  Giacosa 
had  written  other  plays  which  are  collected  in  the  volume 
Commedie  e  scene,  and  one  melodrama  in  three  acts,  in 
verse.  The  Husband  in  Love  with  His  Wife  (Jl  Marito 
araante  delta  moglie)  (1877)  as  to  plot  and  method  might 
well  be  a  Goldonian  comedy,  in  its  good-humored  artifi- 
ciality and  its  impossible  plot  of  the  husband  who  leaves 
his  wife  immediately  after  marriage,  and  who  later 
retm-ns  disguised  to  woo  her,  and  to  test  her  fidelity.  The 
character  of  Count  Ottavio  is  well  done,  his  progress  in  the 
presence  of  his  wife  from  indifference  to  love,  his  torture 
at  the  thought  of  her  possible  infidelity  —  (for  she  will  be 
unfaithful  to  him  as  husband  if  she  accepts  him  as  lover), 
—  all  this  is  cleverly  done. 

The  Red  Count  {U  Conte  Rosso)  (1880)  has  created  a 
great  diversity  of  critical  opinion  in  the  Peninsula.  Croce, 
for  example,  while  he  admits  its  importance  in  Giacosa's 
development,  does  not  think  much  of  it  as  a  play ;  D'Oliva, 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  43 

on  the  other  hand,  exalts  it  into  a  national  tragedy ;  and 
the  public  has  always  enjoyed  it.  Croce  says  The  Red 
Count  marks  Giaeosa's  transition  from  Romanticism  to 
realism  and  it  is  easy  to  identify  in  it  elements  of  both. 
He  tries,  as  he  had  not  done  in  any  of  the  previous  histori- 
cal plays,  to  make  not  only  the  setting  but  the  event 
itself  conform  to  fact.  Therefore  he  builds  his  play 
around  a  person  who  really  existed,  and  who  really  per- 
formed the  deeds  accredited  to  him  in  the  play.  The  plot 
does  not  center  in  a  love  interest  but  turns  rather  on  the 
ambition  of  a  prince  to  rule  liberally  and  justly,  to  sup- 
press his  unruly  barons,  and  to  elevate  the  people.  The 
play  contains  interesting  and  striking  pictures  of  Pied- 
montese  life  in  the  sixteenth  century,  apparently  studied 
with  care ;  the  speech  and  thought  correspond  to  the  at- 
mosphere and  have  a  consistent  tone  of  actuality ;  there 
are  none  of  the  dreamy  and  idly  sentimental  youths 
and  maidens,  and  the  lovelorn  poets  of  the  earlier  plays. 

It  must  be  conceded,  then,  that  Croce's  point  is  well 
taken,  that  this  play  is  the  turning-point  in  Giaeosa's 
career  as  a  dramatist;  not  that  this  is  the  first  play  in 
which  may  be  found  pictures  of  life  in  its  actuality,  nor 
the  last  in  which  fantastic  and  unreal  elements  appear. 
But  it  is  the  play  in  which  it  becomes  evident  that  Gia- 
cosa  is  consciously  and  conscientiously  trying  to  square 
his  material  by  the  measures  and  standards  of  fact. 

One  more  historical  drama  remains  to  be  examined,  — 
The  Lady  of  Challant  [originally  written  in  French  as  La 
Dame  de  Challant  (1890),  rewritten  in  Italian  as  La  Con- 
tessa  di  Challant  (1898)].  It  is  not,  from  any  point  of 
view,  one  of  Giaeosa's  happiest  ventures.  He  wrote  it 
for  Sarah  Bernhardt,  who  brought  it  to  America  in  1891  in 


44  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

a  repertory  that  included  Sardou  in  his  melodramas  La 
Tosca,  Theodora,  and  Fedora.  The  juxtaposition  of  these 
plays  forced  a  comparison  unfair  to  Giacosa  or  to  any 
dramatist  of  his  caliber,  or  with  his  ideals. 

The  plot  of  The  Lady  of  Challant  is  taken  bodily  from  the 
chronicles  of  Grumello  and  from  a  novel  of  the  sixteenth 
century  story-teller,  Bandello.  The  play  is  powerful  and 
well  constructed;  Giacosa  abuses,  to  be  sure,  the  well- 
worn  tricks  of  the  stage  that  every  practical  playwright 
knows.  Bianca  as  the  fallen  woman  redeemed  by  love, 
Don  Pedro,  the  chivalrous  dupe  and  idealist,  are  vieiix 
jeux,  but  in  the  hands  of  Sarah  Bernhardt  the  play  was 
galvanized  into  an  astounding  vitality,  and  just  missed  by 
a  hair's-breadth  being  a  convincing  bit  of  art. 

These  historical  plays  are  not  the  only  products  of  the 
years  from  1880-1889.  During  this  same  period  Giacosa 
■wrote  both  verse  tragedies  and  prose  plays  of  contem- 
porary life.  It  need  hardly  be  pointed  out  that  in  this 
latter  type  Giacosa  found  his  congenial  and  distinctive 
vehicle ;  here  he  felt  at  home ;  here  he  produced  his  best 
work,  and  knew  that  it  was  his  best.  He  wrote  in  1905, 
"WTiatever  is  said,  the  poetry  of  Sad  Loves  shows  in  the 
clearest  way  my  dramatic  temperament,  and  the  works 
written  by  me  immediately  after  A  Game  of  Chess,  all 
more  or  less  realistic,  are  there  to  show  it." 

The  first  half  of  this  statement  is  incontrovertible ;  the 
second  half  is  dubious  and  elusive.  On  close  examination, 
it  would  seem  that  in  his  "more  or  less"  Giacosa  gives 
away  his  case.  To  say,  for  example,  that  The  Hushand  in 
Love  with  his  Wife,  one  of  the  "  plays  written  by  me  imme- 
diately after  A  Game  of  Chess",  is  more  or  less  realistic 
is  to  say  nothing,  for  it  is  so  much  less  than  more,  as  its 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  45 

very  theme  will  show,  that  it  can  only  be  qualified  as 
romantic.  To  be  sure  The  Red  Count  is  less  wildly 
romantic  than  the  Brothers-in-Arms,  but  how  far  it  is 
from  the  reality  of  the  realism  of  Sad  Loves  !  It  is  interest- 
ing, however,  to  notice  that  even  while  we  feel  the  vague- 
ness of  Giacosa's  claim  for  his  earlier  plays,  we  also  feel 
that  it  is  his  conviction  of  the  soundness  of  his  later  prin- 
ciples that  colors  his  vision  of  the  early  plays,  —  he  sees 
them  as  he  would  like  them  to  have  been.  Undoubtedly 
the  comedies  and  the  dramas  of  the  eighties  are  con- 
sciously shaped  to  reproduce  the  actuality  of  life,  and  to 
the  observant  reader  foretell  his  leap  across  the  gap  that 
separates  the  impossible  dreams  of  The  Red  Count  from 
the  plate  rSalite  of  Sad  Loves. 

Mountain  Torrents  (Aquazzoni  in  montagna)  (1876) 
is  a  rollicking  play  with  a  suggestion  of  Eugene  La- 
biche  in  it;  The  Late  Repentance  {La  tardi  raweduta) 
(1888),  the  story  of  a  marchioness  who,  having  been  an 
actress,  returns  to  the  stage,  repenting  late,  but  not  too 
late,  that  she  had  ever  left  her  proper  sphere.  The 
Thread  {II  FHo,  scena  filisofico-morale  per  marionette) 
(1883),  The  Cat's  Claw  {La  Zampa  del  gatto)  (published 
1888),  and  The  Siren  {La  Sirena)  (1889),  all  of  this  period, 
are  comedies.  Probably  the  best  known  of  Giacosa's 
plays  of  this  very  fruitful  ten  years  are  Surrender  at  Dis- 
cretion {Resa  a  discrezione)  (1885)  and  Luisa  (1883).  The 
latter  is  a  modern  problem  play  in  verse  —  a  mongrel  type 
in  any  case,  and  Giacosa's  attempt  to  combine  the  un- 
congenial elements  is  not  a  success.  It  is  the  only  play 
of  Giacosa's  which  has  suicide  as  a  finale,  —  the  heroine  in 
this  case  takes  her  own  life  to  save  her  lover  from  her 
husbandj  a  reckless  reprobate.    In  spite  of  its  unsavory 


46  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

subject-matter,  Luisa  is  not  a  vulgar  sordid  drama  of 
illicit  love.  The  love  of  the  hero  and  heroine  is  sincere, 
passionate,  a  purifying  flame.  Giacosa  has  been  criti- 
cized for  cutting  the  Gordian  knot  of  his  situation  with  the 
dulled  and  commonplace  blade  of  suicide.  His  defense  is, 
"It  happens  in  real  life  that  people  take  their  own  lives, 
so  why  not  in  a  play  ?  "  —  lame  enough  and  totally  un- 
convincing unless  the  psychology  of  the  situation  abso- 
lutely dictates  suicide.  Although  the  effectiveness  of 
Luisa  is  much  hurt  by  the  ahen  medium  of  verse,  the 
play  nevertheless  laid  the  foundation  of  Giacosa's  reputa- 
tion as  a  social  critic,  and  ushers  in  a  long  series  of  success- 
ful dramas  of  this  tj'pe. 

Surrender  at  Discretion  is  of  quite  different  caliber  and 
nature,  being  a  true  comedy  of  manners,  a  scathing  but 
accomplished  attack  on  the  uselessnes?  and  corruption  of 
Italian  high  society,  presenting  a  "  high  life "  group,  — 
selfish,  foolish,  idle  and  criminal.  These  are  placed  in 
contrast  with  a  young  explorer  and  scientist,  a  Sir  Galahad 
in  ideals  and  principles.  It  is  at  once  evident  that  Gia- 
cosa has  taken  a  great  step.  No  longer  are  the  characters 
invented  or  imaginary;  they  are  studied  from  life,  and 
set  in  everyday  situations.  These  unspeakably  vacuous 
men  of  leisure  passing  their  lives  as  cicisbei  to  a  prosperous 
courtesan,  these  spoiled  countesses  who  gamble  away 
fortune  and  reputation  to  recover  both  by  unscrupulous 
coquetry,  these  vultures  of  society  who  feed  upon  dead 
bodies,  —  they  are  people  whom  Giacosa  has  seen  and 
known. 

Elena,  the  heroine  of  this  play,  having  heard  that  the 
young  explorer  Andrea  Sarmi  is  about  to  start  on  an  Arctic 
expedition,  wagers  with  her  friends  that  she  will  prevent 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  47 

his  going.  She  has  never  met  Sarmi,  though  she  knows 
him  to  be  serious,  eager,  Hving  for  his  science ;  but  she 
feels  so  sure  of  her  own  powers  of  fascination  that  she  is 
willing  to  stake  her  all  on  her  ability  to  lure  him  from  his 
purpose.  By  means  of  all  the  devices  of  an  accomplished 
coquette  she  does  succeed  in  making  him  fall  in  love  with 
her  and  abandon  his  expedition.  But,  what  she  did  not 
bargain  for,  she  falls  in  love  with  him.  Sarmi  discovers, 
too  late  to  save  his  scientific  plans,  her  perfidy  and  her 
plot  against  him.  His  denunciation  of  her  is  like  the  lash 
of  a  whip :  "  Madame,  the  boldest  woman  of  the  street 
could  have  done  no  better."  He  leaves  her  to  despair,  for 
she  really  loves  him  and  tries  —  to  no  purpose  —  to  win 
him  back.  It  is  only  when  he  learns  that  in  desperation 
she  is  about  to  go  off  to  live  with  one  of  her  former  cicisbei 
that  he  returns  to  her,  to  save  her  from  this  final  degrada- 
tion. 

As  may  plainly  be  seen.  Surrender  at  Discretion  savors 
strongly  of  Gallic  influence.  It  is  in  some  respects  a  con- 
ventional situation  with  conventionalized  characters, 
but  there  are  good  scenes  which  are  quite  freshly  inspired, 
and  there  is  about  all  an  economy  of  means  and  material 
that  is  most  acceptable  and  promising. 

This  play  is  the  first  of  Giacosa's  which  exhibits  that 
aspect  of  this  work  which  is  most  emphasized  by  his 
critics,  —  his  prepossession  with  moral  situations  and  prob- 
lems. It  is  a  French  critic,  Maurice  Muret,  who  calls 
attention  to  Giacosa's  social  usefulness  in  this  connection. 
Like  Ibsen,  his  far  greater  contemporary,  Giacosa  cut  to 
cure;  but  he  was  no  profound  thinker,  only  a  good- 
natured,  sensible  man  who  having  passed  through  life's 
vicissitudes  with  his  eyes  open,  is  willing  to  give  good  sound 


48  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

bourgeois  advice  about  human  relations.  The  guiding 
stars  in  his  moral  firmament  are  personal  integrity, 
honesty,  directness  and  charity,  a  sense  of  justice  tem- 
pered by  humanity  and  sympathy.  Giacosa  dreamed  of  a 
new  moral  world  where  these  virtues  functioned.  But  it 
was  his  o^Ti  honhommie  that  betrayed  him  and  deranged 
his  scheme.  Of  course  this  quality  endeared  him  as  noth- 
ing else  could  have  done  to  his  public,  who  wanted  and 
needed  this  ready  and  comfortable  faith,  but  it  came  near 
to  undoing  him  as  a  dramatic  artist.  His  desire  to 
supply  each  play  with  a  happy  ending,  a  conclusive  cur- 
tain, a  denouement  acceptable  to  a  bourgeois  audience, 
led  him  many  times  into  lapses  from  dramatic  logic  and 
from  entire  intellectual  honesty. 

These  illogical  and  manipulated  conclusions  are  not, 
however,  due  wholly  to  Giacosa's  complaisance ;  they 
grow  out  of  that  optimistic  philosophy  which  \Nill  not 
admit  an  insoluble  problem.  It  is  because  of  this  that  he 
more  than  once  falls  into  the  trap  that  caught  even 
Moliere  in  Le  Misayiihrope  and  Tartvffe,  where,  rather 
than  not  offer  a  solution  of  his  complication,  he  solves  it 
by  means  of  what  may  be  called  a  ratiocinative  deus  ex 
machina,  quite  external  to  the  nature  of  the  complex.  So 
in  Surrender  at  Discretion,  for  example,  the  only  logical 
ending  would  have  been  tragic,  involving  the  complete 
defeat  and  dishonor  of  Sarmi  and  the  triumph  of  the 
treacherous  and  still  stony-hearted  Elena,  whose  conver- 
sion in  the  play  is  especially  unconvincing;  also  in  Sad 
Loves  the  denouement  is  accidental,  not  organic ;  and  the 
same  thing  must  be  said  of  As  the  Leaves. 

No  doubt  this  illogicality  and  obscurantism  seemed  to 
Giacosa  and  to  his  pleased  audiences  only  a  necessary 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  49 

part  of  "  holding  up  the  banner  of  the  ideal ",  perhaps  even 
an  essential  procedure  in  vindicating  a  beneficent  order 
of  the  universe.  Giacosa  undoubtedly  felt  that  the 
society  of  his  age  and  nation  needed  lessons  in  the  simple 
virtues  of  honesty  and  purity.  It  is  quite  consistent  to 
say  that  he  presented  these  plays  first  of  all  to  please 
and  amuse ;  but  as  a  by-product  and  collateral  effect  he 
aimed  to  cure  his  age  of  certain  dangerous  social  maladies. 
Like  Paolo  Ferrari  he  felt  that  there  was  need  of  up- 
holding the  rights  and  claims  of  society  against  the 
individual,  rather  than  asserting  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual as  against  society  which  has  been  the  theme  of 
most  contemporary  dramatists  of  other  countries.  Is 
there  something  in  Italian  social  culture  that  explains 
and  justifies  this  difference  in  point  of  view  ?  Apropos  of 
this  very  query,  Jean  Dornis,  in  Le  Theatre  Italien  Con- 
temporain,  makes  a  suggestive  contrast  between  Italian 
and  French  society.  The  social  structure  of  France, 
she  says,  is  built  on  a  basis  so  well  defined  and  so  firm  that 
there  is  no  need  to  state  it  or  to  define  it  afresh;  the 
natural  unity  of  civilization  and  morality  is  so  compact 
that  there  is  no  need  to  emphasize  the  State.  On  the  con- 
tj^ry  the  dramatist  does,  and  must  at  times,  attack  these 
very  institutions  which,  so  long  established  and  becoming 
more  and  more  fixed,  become  also  more  and  more  tyranni- 
cal, more  hostile  to  individual  initiative,  doing  violence  to 
emotion.  Italian  civilization,  on  the  contrary,  is  founded 
on  passion,  on  sentiment,  on  family  prestige  and  political 
ascendancy,  rather  than  on  rational  organization  and 
cooperation.  The  rights  of  the  individual  need  no  vindi- 
cation —  they  are  already  too  much  emphasized.  That 
Italy  has  recently  awakened  to  her  great  need  of  some 


50  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

social  solidarity  and  cooperative  responsibility  is  due  in 
some  measure  to  Giacosa  and  a  few  other  artists  who  have 
shared  his  spirit,  who  as  dramatists  have  preached  a 
crusade  against  the  frivolity,  the  criminal  luxury  and  the 
more  criminal  unproductiveness,  as  well  as  against  the 
more  overt  sins  and  crimes  of  a  society  of  leisure. 

The  first  night  of  the  initial  run  of  Sad  Loves  may  be 
said  to  be  the  most  significant  date  in  the  history  of  con- 
temporary drama  in  Italy,  for  it  definitely  signalized  the 
triumph  of  the  naturalistic  school.  Of  course,  there  had 
been  naturalistic,  even  Verist  plays  offered  before,  —  no 
less  luminaries  than  Giovanni  Verga,  and  Luigi  Capuana 
having  produced  plays  of  this  sort.  But  their  success 
was  dubious  and  their  permanence  by  no  means  assured. 
Sad  Loves  cleared  the  air,  and  its  complete  success  estab- 
lished in  the  Italian  theatre  the  principle  of  the  scrupulous 
presentation  of  life  on  the  stage. 

It  could  not  be  otherwise  than  that  Giacosa  should 
have  been  deeply  influenced  by  the  theories  and  the  work 
of  the  great  French  naturalists.  He  was  peculiarly  sensi- 
tive to  literary  influence,  —  and  even  if  he  were  not,  he 
could  not  have  escaped  the  teachings  of  such  masters  as 
Zola,  Flaubert,  the  De  Goncourt  brothers,  naturalists, 
Alphonse  Daudet  and  De  Maupassant,  realists,  but  espe- 
cially perhaps  of  Henri  Becque,  the  dramatist,  two  of 
whose  plays,  Les  Corbeaux  and  La  Parisienne,  were 
greatly  admired  by  him.  The  doctrines  of  this  group  of 
great  Frenchmen  have  become  familiar  to  students  of 
literary  history  in  sorne  of  their  dicta  that  have  become 
almost  proverbial.  "Art  is  life  seen  through  a  tempera- 
ment." "The  drama  is  a  slice  of  life."  "Never  say 
*  How  good ! '  or '  How  beautiful ! '  but  always '  How  true  I ' " 


GinSEPPE   GIACOSA  51 

Such  in  essence  is  the  doctrine  whose  principles  Giacosa 
tried  to  incarnate  in  Sad  Loves.  He  chose  a  bourgeois 
milieu,  utterly  commonplace ;  his  persons  are  merely  men 
and  women  of  the  middle  class,  no  better,  no  worse  than 
the  rest  of  us ;  nothing  "happens"  in  the  entire  course  of 
the  play.  Of  course  Giacosa,  with  the  peculiar  bent  we 
have  discussed  above,  was  not  content  to  let  it  rest  at  that, 
he  gave  it  a  moral,  a  didactic  bearing.  And  those  critics 
who  condemned  him  as  being  a  mere  photographer  were 
either  unjust,  or  were  blind  to  the  characteristic  turn  that 
Giacosa  gave  to  the  play.  Yet  in  spite  of  the  moralizing, 
Giacosa  did  not  sacrifice  the  verity  of  his  picture ;  his  first 
critics,  not  prepared  to  appreciate  this,  did  say :  "  But 
this  is  not  art,  this  is  photography."  In  spite  of  much 
severe  disapproval,  in  spite  even  of  a  few  unappreciative 
hisses.  Sad  Loves  triumphed  and  with  it  the  Verist  school 
in  the  Italian  theatre.  '^  \         ; 

The  Sad  Loves  are  those  of  Fabrizio  Arcieri,  a  young 
advocate,  and  Emma  Scarli,  the  wife  of  his  employer  and 
friend,  Giulio  Scarli.  The  lovers  feel  for  each  other  an 
irresistible  passion  which  the  husband  does  not  suspect. 
He  regards  his  wife  as  the  purest  and  truest  creature  alive, 
wholly  his.  The  lovers,  who  are  forced  to  resort  to  every 
degrading  subterfuge  in  order  to  meet  and  to  conceal 
their  passion,  suffer  morally  and  mentally.  With  con- 
summate art  Giacosa  brings  out  all  the  banality,  the  sordid- 
ness  of  adultery,  its  mean  pettinesses  and  lies,  its  decep- 
tions and  utter  commonplaceness.  Emma,  in  the  midst 
of  the  most  terrible  doubts  and  fears,  is  forced  to  receive 
her  lover  while  drying  her  child's  linen  by  the  fire.  She 
turns  from  a  passionate  scene  with  him  in  which  she  has 
wept  and  loved,  to  settling  her  accounts  with  the  servants 


52  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OP   ITALY 

who  has  been  to  market,  —  "thread  25,  butter  15,  pota- 
toes 3"  —  a  most  masterly  and  convincing  stroke!  But 
in  spite  of  this  sordidness  and  disillusion,  they  cannot 
part.  "Things  like  this  drag  on  indefinitely,"  says  one  of 
the  characters  to  them,  "It  would  be  better  to  break  off 
immediately"  ;  but  they  cannot. 

Fabrizio's  father,  an  old  renegade,  forces  a  confession 
from  Emma  and  armed  with  this  knowledge  forges  a  note 
on  Scarli,  certain  that  the  advocate  will  pay.  The  com- 
plications arising  out  of  this  reveal  to  Scarli  the  relation 
between  his  wife  and  Fabrizio.  It  is  a  thunderclap  to 
him,  who  has  thought  of  his  wife  as  a  semi-divinity.  What 
does  he  do  now?  Does  he  threaten  and  murder?  No! 
He  falls  into  a  chair  and  sobs  like  a  child.  WTiat  an  un- 
dramatic  or  perhaps  only  untheatrical  situation!  The 
lovers  plan  then  to  go  away  together  and  Scarli,  suspect- 
ing this,  takes  the  child,  a  little  girl  Gemma,  for  a  walk. 
Emma  and  Fabrizio  make  their  preparations,  but  at  the 
last  moment  Emma,  seeing  the  big  doll  of  her  little  daugh- 
ter lying  on  a  chair,  feels  her  motherhood  awaken ;  her 
courage  abandons  her.  "  Oh !  When  she  comes  in  she  will 
expect  to  find  me  here.  She'll  call  me  in  her  dear  little 
voice.  What  can  they  tell  her  ?  "  Fabrizio  feels  that  all 
is  over  between  them.  He  cannot  stay  and  she  cannot  go. 
The  lovers  exchange  a  last  farewell  and  he  goes.  Soon 
Scarli  returns  with  the  child.  He  is  surprised  to  find  his 
wife  still  there.  The  little  girl  throws  herself  into  her 
mother's  arms  and  Scarli  says,  "You  didn't  go  then, 
Emma?  You  did  right.  There  is  always  the  baby. 
Now  we  are  partners  in  a  useful  task  and  it  will  be  this 
way  all  our  lives.  Things  like  this  never  come  to  an  end." 
The  education  of  the  child  Gemma,  assuring  her  a  happier 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  53 

life  than  her  parents  have  known,  is  to  be  the  work  of  the 
household.  Scarli  cannot  pardon,  but  for  the  sake  of 
Gemma  he  calls  a  truce. 

Giacosa,  though  he  followed  the  Becque  formula  in  Sad 
Loves,  which  he  somewhat  ironically  called  a  "comedy," 
was  too  human  and  kindly  to  achieve  that  impersonality, 
the  impassibility  of  Flaubert,  which  was  Becque's  greatest 
artistic  asset.  Neither  did  he  share  in  that  "rosserie" 
which  Filon  defines  in  his  little  book,  De  Dumas  a  Rostand. 
Of  the  "comedie  rosse"  he  says,  "It  consists  in  a  lack  of 
conscience,  a  kind  of  vivacious  ingenuity,  the  state  of  mind 
of  people  who  have  never  had  a  sense  of  morality,  who  live 
always  in  mixed  issues,  or  in  injustice,  as  a  fish  lives  in  water 
. —  the  reign  of  evil  is  established  without  apparent  change 
in  the  familiar  relationships  of  society  or  of  everyday 
language."  This  kind  of  comedy  is  seen  in  its  essence  in 
Becque's  La  Parisienne  and  in  certain  other  plays  of  the 
Theatre  Libre;  in  Italy  in  some  of  the  works  of  Bracco 
like  L'Infidele  and  in  Giannino  Antona-Traversi's  comedies 
of  high  life,  La  Civetta  and  La  Scalata  all'  Olimpo.  But  Gia- 
cosa's  outcome  is  entirely  different  from  this,  —  Emma  and 
Fabrizio  are  keenly  conscious  of  the  moral  issue  involved 
in  their  relationship.  They  are  quite  aware  that  what 
they  are  doing  is  wrong  and  they  suffer.  In  all  the 
characters  is  this  clear  consciousness  of  ethical  issues. 
Giacosa  solved  the  problem  as  best  he  could,  retaining  the 
integrity  of  the  family,  justifying  the  husband,  packing 
off  the  lover,  disposing  of  everybody  in  a  bourgeois  and 
highly  moral  manner.  That  the  denouement  is  not  the 
logical  and  inevitable  conclusion  of  the  play  is  a  grave 
fault.  This  Giacosa  undoubtedly  knew.  He  compro- 
mised with  his  own  denouement  in  the  speech  he  gives  to 


54  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

Scarli :  "These  things  never  end."  One  feels  that  Ibsen 
would  not  have  evaded  the  issue  by  the  introduction  of 
the  sentimental  business  of  the  doll,  but  would  have  sent 
the  two  lovers  off  together,  each  the  other's  nemesis  and 
accuser.  Giacosa,  as  has  been  indicated  in  another  con- 
nection, was  too  humanly  interested  in  his  men  and  women 
to  drive  the  point  home,  but  in  spite  of  his  weakness  Sad 
Loves  remains  the  best  of  Italian  Verist  dramas. 

Rights  of  the  Sovl  {Diritti  delVanivia)  (1894),  Giacosa's 
next  play,  is  an  Ibsenite  study  in  feminine  psychology,  — 
Ibsenite  by  actual  imitation  rather  than  merely  by  ten- 
dency, for  Giacosa  was  under  the  direct  sway  of  the  great 
Norwegian  and  intended  to  translate  his  idiom  into 
Italian  by  means  of  Rights  of  the  Soul.  It  is  the  most 
purely  intellectual  of  his  plays,  a  geometrical  problem,  a 
ratiocinative  exercise.  There  is  a  touch  of  the  Scandi- 
navian frost  in  the  cold  analysis  of  a  woman's  soul.  It 
may  have  been  because  of  its  purely  abstract  nature,  per- 
haps because  of  conscious  effort  on  Giacosa's  part,  that 
Rights  of  the  Soul  escapes  his  besetting  fault  and  drives 
home  its  conclusion  clear  to  the  head,  not  for  a  moment 
evading  the  question  at  issue. 

Like  Sad  Loves,  Rights  of  the  Sovl  is  concerned  with  a 
question  of  adultery,  foregone  in  the  former  play,  con- 
templated in  the  latter,  a  matter  of  intellectual  unfaithful- 
ness. A  certain  Paolo  discovers  from  some  old  letters 
that  his  wife  had  been  loved  and  courted  by  his  cousin, 
Luciano,  who  has  recently  committed  suicide.  It  is  clear 
from  the  letters  that  Anna,  the  wife,  had  refused  every- 
thing, —  even  to  see  her  sorely  stricken  adorer ;  in  con- 
sequence of  her  firmness,  Luciano  has  killed  himself.  Into 
his  satisfaction  at  his  wife's  fidelity  there  pierces  a  terrible 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  55 

doubt.  She  was  true  to  him,  —  but  did  she  love  Luciano  ? 
Was  she  adulterous  in  thought?  When  his  wife  appears 
he  questions  her  brutally,  twisting  her  very  heartstrings, 
violating  her  feminine  tenderness,  until  she  can  bear  it  no 
longer;  and  bursts  out,  "Very  well  then!  Yes  I  I  loved 
him  and  him  only,  all  the  time  I  was  living  with  you.  All 
these  years  I  have  guarded  your  peace  of  mind;  now 
your  curiosity  is  awakened  and  to  make  up  for  lost  time 
you  try  to  violate  my  soul,  to  pry  into  its  innermost 
depths.  But  you  can't  walk  into  people's  souls  by  the 
front  door ;  you  have  to  creep  into  them  by  stealth."  He 
must  be  made  to  see  that  the  rights  of  the  soul  are  in- 
violable ;  her  memories  and  dreams  of  Luciano  are  sacred 
and  must  remain  so.  Paolo  feels  that  he  is  no  longer  loved 
and  in  a  rage  he  orders  her  from  the  house.  He  repents 
too  late.  Anna  was  longing  for  this  order  and  now  joy- 
ously runs  to  put  on  her  street  clothes.  The  slam  of  the 
door  as  Nora  Helmer  leaves  The  Doll's  House  finds  its 
echo  in  Anna's  leaving  her  husband's  house  where  she 
has  suffered  an  unforgivable  violence  done  to  her  inmost 
being. 

It  is  diflScult  to  account  for  the  hostile  tone  of  the  criti- 
cism that  this  one-act  play  of  Giacosa's  has  evoked.  One 
feels  that  it  must  be  due  to  the  fact  that  he  did  not  supply 
it  with  the  conventional  pleasant  ending ;  the  situation  is 
interesting  and  pathetic;  the  emotional  reactions  of  the 
two  persons  are  psychologically  sound ;  the  denouement 
natural  and  satisfying  in  the  premises.  Two  faults  it  has : 
the  dramatist  is  too  obviously  present ;  we  are  reminded 
that  the  play  is  a  tour  de  force,  and  that  its  author  is  con- 
stantly in  the  background  manipulating  his  figures  to  his 
own  ends,  —  that,  therefore,  in  this  game  the  dice  are 


56  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

loaded.  In  the  second  place  the  play  is  too  short  for  the 
complete  presentation  of  the  material;  Giacosa  cannot 
compress  into  one  act  all  he  wanted  to  say,  all  that  needed 
to  be  said.  To  this  brevity  and  concentration  has  been 
sacrificed  clarity  and  verisimilitude. 

The  success  of  As  the  Leaves  {Come  lefoglie)  (1900)  was 
the  crowning  achievement  of  Giacosa's  long  career  and 
designated  him  for  the  time  the  first  prose  dramatist  of 
Italy.  Scarcely  ever,  perhaps  indeed  never,  in  the  history 
of  the  Italian  theatre  had  there  been  so  immediate  and  so 
striking  a  success;  certainly  the  unanimity  of  admira- 
tion has  never  been  equaled.  Public  and  critics  both 
joined  in  enthusiastic  approbation  of  the  man  upon  whom 
the  mantle  of  Goldoni  had  fallen,  who  could  write  an 
honest,  clean,  wholesome  piece  of  work  which  could,  as 
the  theatre  should,  "corriger  les  moeurs  en  riant."  With 
this  play  Giacosa  had  delivered  a  bold  and  telling  stroke 
in  his  great  social  campaign.  It  is  the  protest  of  bour- 
geois good  sense  against  the  excesses  of  the  super-refined. 

Giovanni  Rosani,  a  type  studied  "  sur  le  vif",  at  the  age 
of  sixty-five  years  had  lived  only  for  his  family  —  to 
spare  them  effort  and  pain ;  he  has  earned  money,  lots  of 
money,  so  that  his  daughter  Nennele,  his  son  Tommy  and 
his  second  wife  have  all  been  kept  in  cotton  wool.  Sud- 
denly, through  no  fault  of  his  own,  Rosani  loses  his  money. 
Giacosa  proceeds  to  study  the  effect  of  poverty  and  the 
necessity  of  making  an  effort  on  the  characters  of  these 
people.  The  family  is  saved  from  utter  destitution  by  the 
kindness  of  a  cousin,  Massimo,  a  man  self-made  but  in  no 
invidious  sense.  It  is  a  series  of  remarkable  portraits 
that  Giacosa  has  drawn :  Rosani,  honest,  commonplace, 
good  to  the  utmost,  but  unintelligent,  too  much  wrapped 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  57 

up  in  mere  money-making  to  perceive  the  disintegration 
of  his  household ;  his  wife,  spoiled  completely  by  luxury, 
characterless,  even  to  the  point  of  dishonesty,  quite  ready 
to  be  unfaithful;  Tommy,  his  son,  a  masterpiece  of 
character  drawing  which  struck  home  in  more  than  one 
Italian  breast,  —  spoiled  by  luxury  he  is  aflBicted  with  that 
worst  of  Italian  sins,  laziness;  he  is  a  lovable  good-for- 
nothing,  completely  lacking  power  of  decision  and  con- 
tinuity of  action.  Nennele  his  sister  is  of  different 
caliber.  She  too  has  been  reared  in  luxury,  spared  all 
effort,  but  at  the  moment  of  need  she  is  not  found  wanting, 
but  picks  up  her  burden  and  carries  it  with  a  will.  Mas- 
simo, the  self-made  cousin,  is  the  embodiment  of  all  that 
Giacosa  and  the  Italian  bourgeois  public  admired  most. 
An  orphan,  he  has  made  himself  rich  by  his  own  efforts, 
and  in  rubbing  elbows  with  all  sorts  of  people  he  has 
acquired  a  large  humanity.  He  is  virile,  good,  generous, 
and  loyal.  Somewhat  platitudinous  and  given  to  point- 
ing a  moral,  easily  triumphing  over  Tommy,  he  is  pre- 
cisely the  right  type  of  hero  for  a  middle-class  drama, 
and  the  public  was  immensely  pleased  with  him.  It  is  the 
conflict  and  contrast  of  these  characters  that  make  the 
play. 

The  family,  ruined  in  Florence,  moves  to  Switzerland. 
Here  Nennele  manages  the  household,  Rosani  works  in 
Massimo's  factory,  and  Tommy  and  his  mother  carry  on 
more  or  less  shady  intrigues  —  the  one  with  two  artists,  the 
other  with  an  adventuress  who  has  taken  a  liking  to  him. 
Nennele  takes  a  position  as  governess.  But  through  the 
extravagance  of  the  two  weak  members,  the  family  for- 
tunes go  from  bad  to  worse.  Massimo,  who  has  fallen 
m  love  with  Nennele  and  been  once  refused  by  her,  is 


58  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

continually  at  hand,  giving  aid  and  advice.  Finally 
things  come  to  a  terrible  pass ;  Mme  Rosani  is  in  desperate 
trouble,  Tommy  goes  oflF  to  marry  his  adventuress, 
Nennele,  in  despair,  resolves  to  do  away  with  herself. 
Almost  in  the  act  of  suicide  she  detects  Massimo  in  the 
shadowy  garden,  and  realizes  that  he  is  unobtrusively 
watching  over  her.  She  suddenly  realizes  his  goodness 
and  its  value  and  calls  to  him  to  come  to  her  side. 

As  the  Leaves  is  excellently  managed  from  a  technical 
point  of  view.  The  characters  are  well  defined  and  dis- 
tinguished; the  dialogue  is  crisp,  witty,  pungent;  there 
is  an  upward  curve  of  interest  and  suspense  until  the 
denouement ;  it  gives  also  a  remarkable  illusion  of  life  and 
living.  It  may  safely  be  called  the  best  of  Giacosa's 
plays. 

In  an  address  on  the  occasion  of  the  inauguration  of  a 
bust  of  Paolo  Ferrari  in  1898  Giacosa  spoke  these  words : 
"Adultery  and  the  love  interest  have  been  far  too  ex- 
clusively the  subject  of  comedy.  Let  us  mix  in  our  plays 
ambition  and  anger,  avarice,  pride,  revolt,  the  sorrow  of 
fathers  and  mothers,  betrayals  of  friendship,  humiliations 
coming  from  physical  infirmities  and  those  still  more 
biting  coming  from  moral  infirmities  and  intellectual 
tares.  Then  you  shall  see  whether  or  not  the  comic  stage 
will  be  rejuvenated  and  will  become  more  living  and  real 
than  at  the  time  when  amorous  perversions  triumphed." 
From  a  man  who  had  just  written  two  plays  on  adultery, 
Sad  Loves  and  The  Rights  of  the  Soul,  this  statement  is  a  bit 
baflBing.  Nevertheless  his  call  for  new  subject  matter 
was  pertinent  and  voiced  a  crying  need  of  the  theatre. 
In  his  next  two  plays  —  As  the  Leaves  and  The  Stronger  — 
he  joined  practice  to  precept  and  the  amorous  passion 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  59 

takes  a  decidedly  secondary  place,  while  adultery  is 
entirely  absent  from  both.  His  timely  innovation  was 
welcomed  with  enthusiasm.  The  old  themes  were  pretty 
threadbare,  and  consequently  the  study  of  the  fallen  for- 
tunes of  a  family  in  As  the  Leaves,  of  a  question  of  probity 
in  The  Stronger  had  the  charm  of  freshness  and  the  pres- 
tige of  importance. 

Cesare  Nalli  of  The  Stronger  {II  PiU  forte)  (1905)  is  a 
great  financier  of  the  family  of  Le  Sage's  "Turcaret"  and 
Balzac's  "Mercadet",  who  has  amassed  a  huge  fortune 
by  means  which,  if  not  illegal,  are  certainly  not  nicely 
honorable.  A  wolf  and  a  devourer  in  the  business  world, 
he  is  at  home  the  tenderest  of  husbands,  the  kindest  of 
fathers.  He  has  brought  up  his  son  Silvio  to  be  an  artist, 
has  encouraged  him  to  enjoy  the  money  so  plentifully 
supplied,  has  cultivated  in  him  the  most  scrupulous  sense 
of  honor.  By  an  accident  Silvio  discovers  his  father's 
crookedness.  Shocked  and  revolted,  he  feels  that  he 
cannot  consent  to  enjoy  a  fortune  gathered  by  question- 
able means.  He  cannot  cease  loving  his  father  and  casts 
no  reproaches  upon  him.  The  scene  in  which  the  father 
and  son  have  an  explanation  is  the  capital  one  of  the  play 
and  brings  out  Giacosa's  thesis,  —  Which  is  the  Stronger  ? 
To  any  one  with  a  knowledge  of  Giacosa  the  answer  is 
obvious;  right  must  triumph.  Silvio,  through  love  of 
virtue  and  uprightness,  is  able  to  renounce  all  his  posses- 
sion and  even  the  love  of  his  wife  —  a  weak  little  woman 
who  cannot  live  without  luxury  —  Silvio,  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  virtue,  is  The  Stronger. 

The  Stronger,  particularly  the  character  of  Cesare  Nalli, 
has  been  frequently  compared  with  its  French  prototype 
Les  Affaires  sont  les  affaires  of  Octave  Mirbeau,  much  to 


60  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

the  disadvantage  of  The  Stronger.  Giacosa's  financier  has 
not  the  consistent  hardness,  the  logical  sternness  of 
Mirbeau's  Isadore  Sechart,  nor  does  Giacosa  push  the 
play  —  his  old  fault  —  through  to  its  logical  conclusion. 
Cesare  Nalli  is  a  shadowy  figure  compared  with  Isadore 
Sechart,  a  pastel  rather  than  a  dry  point,  and  his  son 
Silvio  shares  this  vagueness ;  it  is  the  secondary  characters 
who,  by  an  interesting  paradox,  stand  out.  Indeed,  in 
Giacosa's  plays  this  fact  can  scarcely  be  called  paradoxical, 
for  the  minor  and  secondary  personages  in  all  the  important 
plays  are  the  ones  depicted  with  the  firmest  strokes.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  Giacosa's  grasp  on  character  was  not  so 
notable  as  his  mastery  of  situation  and  his  clear-sighted- 
ness in  moral  issues. 

Giacosa  also  took  an  interest  in  what  we  may  call  a 
neglected  if  not  deserted  branch  of  art  allied  to  drama,  — 
the  operatic  libretto.  He  longed  to  renew  the  fallen  art  of 
the  librettist  and  wrote,  together  with  Luigi  Illica,  books 
for  the  following  music  of  Giacomo  Puccini :  La  Boheme, 
La  Tosca,  and  Madame  Butterfly.  They  are  assuredly 
not  very  successful  as  literature.  They  inevitably  suffer 
from  being  obliged  to  adapt  themselves  to  music  to  which 
after  all  they  are  external,  but  at  least  they  are  better 
than  most  other  librettos. 

By  way  of  summary  we  may  reflect  the  thought  with 
which  this  study  of  Giacosa  began,  that  he  is  the  bridge, 
the  connecting  link  between  the  Neo-Romantics  and  the 
true  moderns.  In  turn  neo-romantic,  semi-realistic, 
veristic,  genuinely  realistic,  with  an  Ibsenite  interlude, 
he  followed  closely  the  intellectual  and  dramatic  fashions 
of  his  artistic  lifetime.  His  changes  of  manner,  however, 
must  not  be  charged  to  superficial  versatility  or  to  in- 


GIUSEPPE   GIACOSA  61 

difference.  There  is  none  of  that  copious  fertility  which 
merely  follows  the  mode;  his  plays  are  the  product  of 
slow  and  painstaking  elaboration.  Rather  is  his  work 
the  product  of  his  intimate  and  varied  contact  with  the 
life  of  his  time,  the  response  of  his  sensitive  soul  to  the 
changing  psychic  and  social  atmosphere  of  the  last  quarter 
of  the  nineteenth  century.  It  was  late  in  life  when  in  the 
realistic  bourgeois  comedy  he  finally  found  himself;  he 
seemed  to  grow  more  modern  as  he  grew  older.  His  first 
romanticism,  however,  was  quite  as  truthful  and  sincere  a 
manifestation  of  his  artistic  personality  as  was  the  verism 
of  the  last  remarkable  plays. 

In  each  of  the  dramatic  genres  he  essayed  Giacosa  has 
left  a  work,  in  some  more  than  one,  of  genuine  significance 
even  when  not  absolutely  vital  and  enduring.  His  gift  to 
the  Italian  stage  was  a  body  of  new  themes,  a  corpus  of 
new  subject-matter;  he  renovated  the  drama  with  his 
fresh  and  clean  ideas  and  clear  style.  He  cooperated 
nobly  in  the  creation  of  the  national  theatre.  From  any 
point  of  view  and  according  to  any  standard,  we  must 
reckon  Giuseppe  Giacosa  one  of  the  notable  writers  of  the 
modern  movement. 


CHAPTER  III 
The  Early  Realists 

The  literature  of  Italy  of  the  nineteenth  century,  like 
that  of  all  literary  countries  of  the  same  period,  exhibits 
the  two  strains  of  realism,  —  one  the  attempt  to  produce 
the  effect  of  actual  life,  the  other  the  attempt  to  reproduce 
the  actuality  of  life  itself,  sometimes  distinguished  as 
realism  and  naturalism. 

As  in  France  the  realism  of  Balzac,  of  Dumas  jUs,  of 
Augier,  gave  place  to  the  naturalism  of  Flaubert,  of 
Becque,  and  the  dramatists  of  the  ThIStre  Libre,  so  in 
Italy,  Ferrari  and  Torelli  gave  place  to  Vergaand  Capuana. 

Realism  did  not  by  any  means  begin  its  life  as  a  bantling 
flung  naked  on  the  rocks ;  as  a  matter  of  fact  it  inherited 
a  rather  comfortable  property  from  its  predecessor,  the 
Romanticism  which  took  its  rise  about  1825,  and  which 
went  through  its  several  phases  within  the  fifty  years 
following  that  date.  Some  of  the  items  of  that  legacy 
are :  rebellion  against  classical  or  other  traditional  author- 
ity ;  the  doctrine  of  the  popularization  of  literature,  the 
appeal  to  the  common  people,  the  use  of  common  people 
and  their  affairs  as  literary  material,  —  a  result  of  revolu- 
tionary thinking  everywhere;  the  recognition  of  the 
moral  and  practical  function  of  novel  and  drama,  —  for 
example,  to  teach  national  loyalty ;  a  vision  of  historical 
verity  and  truth  to  local  and  temporal  atmosphere  which 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  63 

on  the  whole  informed  the  large  mass  of  plays  based  by 
the  Romanticists  on  the  national  past  and  on  the  IVIiddle 
Ages ;  some  skill  in  psychological  analysis,  in  the  identi- 
fication of  motives  and  of  passion,  and  in  the  handling 
of  subjective  material. 

Realism  rejected  the  heroics  and  the  sentimentality 
of  the  Romanticists.  It  vastly  expanded  the  range  of 
practical  affairs  and  social  problems  treated  in  drama; 
it  became  more  convinced  and  more  scientific  in  local 
and  temporal  color,  and  in  the  study  of  inner  motives 
and  subjective  states.  But  it  is  not  unfair  to  say  that 
realism  existed  in  the  new  Romanticism  as  a  germ,  that 
it  becomes  a  bud  in  Ferrari  and  Torelli,  blossoms  in 
Giacosa,  and  comes  to  fruition  in  the  naturalism  of  Verga. 
Italian  Verism  leaned  rather  toward  naturalism  than 
realism,  tending  to  reproduce  life  on  the  stage  rather 
than  to  give  the  effect  of  life. 

The  drama  in  France  had  its  realists  in  those  great 
artists  who  must  be  mentioned  so  many  times  in  any 
account  of  modern  literature  —  Augier,  Dumas  jUs,  and 
Pailleron  with  their  followers,  who  comprise  the  large 
body  of  recent  dramatists,  but  the  other  camp,  the 
naturalists,  besides  Zola,  counted  Henri  Becque  and  the 
artists  of  the  Theatre  Libre.  In  England  and  in  Germany 
the  same  two  schools  or  groups  arose,  and  in  Italy  too, 
although  the  realists  were  in  a  large  majority,  there  was 
a  naturalistic  school  who  called  themselves  Verists  and 
who  nourished  their  artistic  youth  upon  the  dicta  of 
Emile  Zola. 

It  is  interesting  and  remarkable  that  in  the  Italian 
theatre  the  success  of  the  Verists  was  achieved  without 
serious  diflficulty,  —  remarkable  in  view  of  the  fact  that 


64  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

in  other  European  countries  their  work  was  hailed  with 
a  storm  of  disapproval.  In  Germany,  France,  and 
England  the  two  decades,  the  eighties  and  nineties,  were 
a  period  of  intense  struggle,  when  the  moderns  and  the 
radicals  were  battling  with  the  conservatives  for  the 
right  of  free  expression  in  the  theatre.  The  battle  be- 
tween the  naturalists  who  were  the  modern  party  de- 
manding freedom  and  the  right  of  a  hearing,  and  the 
conservatives  of  all  sorts,  whether  genuine  idealists, 
ordinary  mossbacks,  or  mere  politicians,  centered  about 
three  institutions  founded  and  maintained  by  the  new 
dramatists  and  their  backers,  —  the  "Theatre  Libre"  of 
Andre  Antoine  in  Paris,  the  "Freie  Biihne"  in  Germany, 
modeled  after  its  French  prototype,  and  the  "  Independent 
Theatre  "in  London,  sponsored  and  defended  by  Shaw,  by 
William  Archer,  and  by  most  of  the  dramatic  writers  who 
have  made  a  name  in  England  in  recent  years.  It  is  curious 
that  in  Italy  there  is  nothing  to  correspond  to  these 
significant  institutions  and  experiments.  There  was, 
to  be  sure,  much  criticism  of  the  "crudity"  of  the  new 
school,  much  exclaiming  that  its  product  was  not  art,  but 
there  was  no  organized  or  even  unanimous  opposition. 
The  plays  of  Giacosa,  Verga,  and  Capuana,  the  three 
capital  representatives  of  the  theatre  of  Verism,  had  no 
difficulty  in  establishing  themselves. 

The  fact  that  there  was  no  call  in  Italy  for  a  free  theatre 
may  be  accounted  for  by  these  considerations:  in  the 
first  place,  the  Italian  is  artistically  the  most  hospitable 
person  in  the  world ;  he  has  always  been  ready  to  accept 
anything  that  he  adjudged  well  done.  In  the  second 
place,  he  is  not  easily  offended  on  the  score  of  morality, 
he  has  a  long  tradition  of  questionable  theatricals,  be- 


THE   EARLY   REALISTS  65 

ginning  with  Machiavelli  and  Aretino  and  continuing 
unbroken  to  our  time.  Furthermore,  in  Italy  the  Church 
is  supreme  in  the  guardianship  of  morals  and  the  lay  public 
is  not  concerned  as  it  is  in  England  and  in  France  with 
the  formation  of  a  respectable  public  opinion.  In  the 
third  place,  the  battle  between  literary  radicals  and  con- 
servatives was  fought  out  in  Italy  not  in  the  theatre  but 
in  the  fields  of  lyric  poetry  and  the  novel.  And  in  the 
fourth  place,  foreign,  particularly  ultra-montane  in- 
fluence was  very  powerful,  and  what  had  won  for  itself 
acceptance  in  France  was  likely  to  be  accepted  without 
question  in  Italy. 

■  The  quarrel  between  the  "Idealists"  and  the  Verists 
had  burst  into  flame  in  1877-1878  apropos  of  the  volume 
of  lyrics  by  a  poet  who  called  himself  Lorenzo  Stecchetti, 
Postuma.  In  1878  appeared  another  volume  by  the 
same  man,  Nuova  Polemica,  with  a  long  preface  which 
was  in  a  sense  the  manifesto  of  the  Verists.  They  were 
at  this  time  a  group  of  young  and  ardent  spirits  who  had 
rallied  to  the  defense  of  Postuma,  literary  revolutionists 
who  affected  an  independent  realism  both  in  form  and 
content.  They  voiced  the  inevitable  revolt,  a  demand 
for  greater  liberty  on  the  part  of  the  new  generation, 
cramped  within  the  narrow  limits  and  arbitrary  bound- 
aries of  the  "Idealists",  who  had  made  a  literary  fetish 
of  Manzoni,  and  whose  main  champion  at  this  time  was 
Cavalotti.  The  reaction  against  Manzoni-ism  took  two 
forms  in  poetry,  that  of  Carducci,  who  went  to  Greece 
and  Rome  for  inspiration,  and  that  of  Stecchetti,  who 
turned  to  the  life  around  him.  The  theory  of  art  which 
guided  them  is  a  familiar  one.  "Art  should  reproduce 
life.    It  is  neither  moral  nor  immoral  but  simply  good  or 


66  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OP   ITALY 

bad  as  art.  They  who  accuse  the  new  school  of  obscenity 
or  irreligion  confound  criticism  of  thesis  with  criticism  of 
form,  the  true  distinction  being  between  authors  who 
write  well  and  those  who  write  ill.  Life  must  be  por- 
trayed whole,  in  its  deformity  as  well  as  in  its  beauty, 
and  Art  .  .  .  must  not  be  torn  away  from  nastiness." 
To  exemplify  his  theory  of  art,  Lorenzo  Stecchetti  wrote 
successive  volumes  of  poetry  which  "  out-Baudelaired " 
Baudelaire  in  super-refinement  verging  on  perversion, 
and  were  more  meticulous  in  detail  than  those  of  Leconte 
de  Lisle.  His  tradition  in  verse  was  later  taken  up, 
immeasurably  expanded,  and  sublimated  by  Gabriele 
D'Annunzio,  "ce  terrible  horriTne,  ce  Baudelaire  effrene." 
Giovanni  Pascoli,  too,  followed  closely  in  Stecchetti's 
footsteps,  and  what  Stecchetti  did  for  lyric  poetry  Giovanni 
Verga  did  ten  years  later  for  the  novel.  Indeed  Verga 
continued  and  so  expanded  Stecchetti's  work  that  it  is 
he  who  actually  stands  as  the  supreme  representative  of 
the  school.  His  series  The  Vanquished  holds  the  same 
place  in  Italian  naturalism  as  Zola's  Rougon-Macquart 
series  does  in  French.  For  a  time  there  was  keen  opposi- 
tion to  the  new  writers,  but  when  the  smoke  cleared  away 
the  Verists  were  found  to  be  established  on  firm  standing- 
ground  ;  they  had  most  evidently  come  to  stay  and  there 
was  no  need  of  fighting  their  battle  again  in  the  theatre. 

The  success  of  Giacosa's  Sad  Loves  was  enough  in 
itself  to  show  that  the  triumph  of  the  Verists  was  definite ; 
while  in  the  field  of  criticism  they  found  a  spokesman 
and  champion  in  the  Sicilian,  Luigi  Capuana  (1839-  ), 
who  joined  practice  to  precept  by  writing  stories  and  two 
plays,  one  of  them,  Giacinta  (1888),  being  meritorious, 
and  the  other,  Enchantment  (Malia),  a  story  of  a  young 


THE   EARLY   REALISTS  67 

girl's  perverted  passion,  being  quite  successful  in  itself 
and  famous  as  the  vehicle  of  the  actors  Giovanni  Grasso 
and  Mimi  Aguglia. 

In  the  preface  to  his  Giacinta,  Capuana  voices  his 
ideal  of  a  practicable  drama,  which  may  be  taken  as  re- 
flecting the  theory  of  the  whole  school.  "I  set  out  to 
simplify  the  conduct  of  the  action,  and  the  form  of  the 
dialogue.  Simplifying  the  action  meant  to  me  debarrass- 
ing  it  of  a  great  *part  of  those  conventions  .  .  .  the  long 
abuse  of  which  . . .  has  led  to  their  being  regarded  as  almost 
of  the  same  nature  as  dramatic  art.  .  .  .  Simplifying 
the  dialogue  meant  the  setting  aside  of  all  ornament,  of 
all  ornamentation  falsely  called  literary,  originating  in 
the  intervention  of  the  personality  of  the  author  in  the 
manifestation  of  the  thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  char- 
acters ;  and  securing  a  form,  close,  rapid  .  .  .  able  to  give 
the  illusion  of  spoken  dialogue  without  losing  its  quality 
of  art."  If  Capuana  failed  to  write  up  to  this  fine  formula 
it  was  probably  because  his  native  gifts  were  those  of 
critic  rather  than  dramatist.  It  is  true  that  neither  of 
his  plays  exhibits  the  working  out  of  his  program.  Giacinta 
was  a  failure  in  the  theatre  and  Enchantment  achieved  a 
sibcces  de  scandal  rather  than  an  artistic  popularity. 

It  remained  for  Giovanni  Verga  to  exemplify  the  prin- 
ciples laid  down  by  his  contemporary  and  fellow-islander, 
and  to  fulfill  the  promise  of  the  Verists  in  drama.  Verga 
(1840-  )  may  be  said  to  have  made  a  faithful  literary 
chronicle  of  the  inner  and  intimate  life  of  Southern  Italy 
and  of  his  native  Sicily ;  and  this  to  such  good  effect  that 
a  few  years  ago  his  European  fame  rivaled  that  of  D'An- 
nunzio.  This  reputation  has,  however,  waned  with  the 
decline  of  the  vogue  of  the  realistic  novel ;  although  now 


68  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

with  a  perspective  of  twenty  years  to  stabilize  our  judg- 
ment we  may  safely  place  him  as  the  chief  of  the  Verists, 
the  most  eminent  writer  of  local  novels  and  plays.  His 
plays  of  the  fisherfolk,  the  shepherds,  and  the  small- 
town people  of  Sicily  are  unsurpassed  and  inimitable. 
He  did  not  confine  himself  to  the  country  or  to  Sicily, 
but  wrote  several  novels  and  at  least  two  plays  whose 
interests  and  events  lay  outside  his  native  locality;  but 
it  is  undoubtedly  true  that  he  is  at  his  best  when  his  feet 
are  firmly  planted  on  the  soil,  when  his  inspiration  is 
drawn  from  his  own  people.  The  peasant  of  his  own 
country  is  to  Verga  an  open  book;  his  sympathetic 
knowledge  of  his  countrymen  is  so  profound,  his  fidelity 
to  fact  so  scrupulous,  that  his  plays  may  well  rank  as 
trustworthy  documents  in  the  social  history  of  unhappy 
Sicily. 

Giovanni  Verga,  bom  at  Catania  in  1840,  started  his 
career  as  an  ultra-romantic  romancer  in  the  taste  of  his 
times.  But  between  1874  and  1881  he  executed  a  com- 
plete artistic  turn-over,  for  in  the  latter  year  he  published 
The  Malavoglia  Family  (7  Malavoglia)  (1881).  With 
this  book,  his  masterpiece  and  indeed  one  of  the  greatest 
novels  of  the  age,  did  Verga  thus  abruptly  establish  the 
technic  and  tone  of  the  veristic  novel.  With  photo- 
graphic detail  and  scrupulous  truthfulness  he  paints  the 
life  of  the  Sicilian  fisherfolk  of  the  type  to  be  seen  in  the 
coast  villages.  The  Malavoglia  Family  was  planned  as 
the  first  of  a  vast  series  after  the  model,  doubtless,  of 
Zola's  Rougon-Macguart  system,  to  be  called  The 
Vanquished  (I  Vinti),  in  which  would  be  depicted  the 
experiences  of  those  miserable  ones  who  are  beaten  in 
the  race,  conquered  in  the  battle  of  life. 


THE   EARLY   REALISTS  69 

Verga  wrote  only  one  other  book  in  the  series,  Maestro 
Don  Gesualdo.  In  1884  appeared  a  volume  of  short 
stories  of  peasant  life,  among  them  Rustic  Chivalry 
{Cavalleria  Rusticana),  which  he  later  dramatized.  From 
this  time  on  he  wrote  in  this  manner,  recording  as  realis- 
tically as  possible  aspects  of  Sicilian  peasant  life.  The 
few  excursions  he  made  into  another,  more  romantic 
manner,  such  as  in  the  plays.  In  the  Porter's  Lodge  (In 
Portineria)  and  The  Fox-hunt  {La  Caccia  alia  Volpe) 
have  little  worth  and  less  significance.  Luckily  Verga 
had  his  impulse  to  Romanticism  early  and  exhausted  it 
in  his  novels,  so  that  by  the  time  he  began  to  write  for 
the  theatre  he  had  quite  established  himself  in  the  manner 
which  was  his  natural  expression. 

The  passage  quoted  above  from  Capuana's  preface 
gives  more  clearly  than  any  passage  Verga  ever  wrote 
himself  the  principles  and  theory  which  underlay  his 
dramatic  writing.  He  never  used  the  old  sure-fire  situa- 
tions and  plots;  he  cared  not  a  jot  for  scenic  effects; 
he  never  bothered  himself  about  the  poetry.  Of  course, 
it  would  be  most  misleading  to  say  that  he  had  no  regard 
for  style,  for  his  choice  of  words,  his  turns  of  speech,  his 
balance  of  sentence  were  almost  meticulously  calculated 
to  give  an  atmosphere  of  actuality  to  the  dialogue.  Like 
the  De  Goncourts,  whose  name  must  keep  recurring  in 
any  discussion  of  naturalism,  he  had  his  notebook  con- 
stantly in  hand,  jotting  down  the  details  that  he  in- 
corporated into  his  plays.  It  was  a  hobby  of  Verga's 
to  collect  homely  and  popular  proverbs,  believing  as  he 
did  that  they  conferred  a  distinctive  flavor  of  the  country. 
The  plays  are  full  of  country  maxims  and  epigrams 
gathered  from  the  lips  of  the  peasants. 


70  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

Unlike  the  great  Frenchmen,  however,  Verga  exercised 
careful  selection  as  to  what  details  he  should  use,  in- 
corporating only  those  which  had  essentially  constructive 
value.  It  is  not,  however,  inconsistent  to  say  that 
Flaubert's  doctrine  of  the  impassibility  of  the  artist  is 
also  an  essential  part  of  Verga's  artistic  creed.  The 
artist,  he  asserts,  must  stand  aside  and  watch  the  "de- 
terminism of  facts";  the  human  soul  must  be  studied 
(to  use  Flaubert's  phrase  which  might  well  be  Verga"'s) 
"avec  rimpartialite  qu'on  met  dans  les  sciences  yhysiques ;'* 
the  observer  must  refrain  from  sympathy  or  judgment. 
The  preface  to  I  Malavoglia  might,  indeed,  have  been 
written  by  Flaubert. 

But  Verga  does  not  live  up  to  his  own  Spartan  theory ; 
he  is  too  human,  too  sympathetic  with  those  who  suffer; 
his  irony  is  quite  often  the  outburst  of  a  heart  whose 
sympathy  lies  too  deep  for  tears.  "The  vanquished" 
have  all  his  love ;  they  may  be  low  and  squalid  and  even 
loathsome,  but  as  he  sees  them  these  things  are  their 
misfortune,  not  their  fault.  He  shows  men  ignorant, 
superstitious,  violent.  Life  is  in  his  world  a  pitiless 
struggle  for  existence;  survival  is  achieved  only  by  war 
to  the  knife.  His  wretched  peasant,  continually  face 
to  face  with  starvation,  must  take  whatever  means  of 
self-preservation  he  can;  he  becomes  the  wolf,  as  in 
The  Wolf  Hunt,  as  in  The  She-Wolf. 

Since  Verga  chose  to  view  life  under  this  aspect,  since 
he  can  see  only  "the  hog  in  nature",  his  plays  lack  cer- 
tain finer  qualities  of  dramatic  art,  —  inspiration  and 
emotional  exaltation.  But  bathed  as  they  are  in  a  crude, 
raw,  unsparing  light  of  reality,  they  are  powerful,  con- 
vincing, majestic  in  their  unshrinking  truth  to  life.    He 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  71 

is  not  in  any  degree  a  doctrinaire.  Verism  is  not  a 
mere  fashion  with  him  but  the  natural  form  into  which 
his  material  flows. 

Verga's  first  play  was  his  dramatization  of  his  short 
story,  Rustic  Chivalry,  which  with  the  accompaniment 
of  Mascagni's  music  has  made  the  tour  of  the  world. 
A  drama  of  singular  intensity  and  concentration,  he  has 
packed  into  the  one  act  of  nine  scenes  a  whole  three- 
acts'  worth  of  passion.  In  other  hands  it  might  easily 
have  become  merely  a  drama  of  situation ;  Paolo  Ferrari 
or  Giacosa  might  have  dwelt  on  the  scenes  of  sentiment ; 
not  so  Verga,  who  moves  inexorably  on,  nor  pauses  to 
write  any  "good  parts"  in  which  an  actor  might  display 
his  virtuosity. 

The  action  passes  in  a  tiny  village  near  Catania  in 
Sicily.  Turiddu,  conscripted,  having  served  in  the  army 
for  two  years,  returns  to  find  that  his  promised  wife, 
Lola,  has  forgotten  him  and,  expert  in  coquetry,  has 
married  the  carter,  Alfio.  Out  of  spite,  he  woos  an 
orphan  girl  in  the  village,  Santuzza,  and  betrays  her. 
Lola,  jealous,  receives  him  again  as  her  lover  and  he 
deserts  Santuzza.  She,  about  to  give  birth  to  a  child, 
begs  him  to  marry  her,  for  she  still  adores  her  betrayer, 
when  he  scorns  her  and  goes  off  again  with  Lola.  The 
girl,  mad  with  jealousy,  hastens  to  tell  the  carter  of  the 
relation  his  wife  has  with  Turiddu;  a  barbarous  duel 
with  knives  follows,  and  Turiddu  is  killed. 

Those  who  know  the  Rustic  Chivalry  only  as  an  opera 
where  it  is  burdened  and  tamed  by  Mascagni's  music 
can  scarcely  imagine  the  reality  and  the  brutality  of  the 
drama  itself.  This  Lola  and  Santuzza,  this  Turiddu  and 
Alfio,  are  the  men  and  women  of  the  fierce  Sicilian  country- 


72  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

side,  wearing  the  clothes,  speaking  the  language  of  rude 
peasants,  torn  by  their  passions,  hungry  with  their  crav- 
ings, blind  with  their  superstitions.  In  this  crude  and 
mighty  play  Verga  is  at  his  strongest. 

In  the  Porter's  Lodge  {In  Porteneria)  (1885)  shifts  the 
scene  from  Catania  to  a  quarter  of  the  city  of  Milan 
occupied  by  the  lowest  class  of  town  dwellers.  Malia, 
a  virtuous  young  girl,  is  madly  in  love  with  Carlino,  a 
printer's  apprentice :  according  to  what  might  be  called 
a  naturalistic  tradition,  Malia  is  aflflicted  with  consump- 
tion, which  is  aggravated  by  her  unhappy  passion.  Car- 
lino,  although  he  knows  that  the  proper  wife  for  him  would 
be  Malia,  is  himself  perversely  taken  with  her  sister, 
Gilda,  a  prostitute.  The  wretched  Malia  finally  dies  of 
her  moral  suffering,  which  brings  on  an  acute  stage  of  her 
malady,  and  in  the  last  terrific  scene  Carlino,  over  the 
bed  where  she  lies  dying,  makes  violent  love  to  the  dis- 
honored sister.  This  is  a  scene  worthy  of  Henri  Becque, 
full  of  bitter  irony,  unrelieved  by  humor  or  sympathy. 
The  considerable  success  of  In  the  Porter's  Lodge  did 
not,  luckily,  prevent  Verga  from  returning  to  his  proper 
field.  An  interval  of  ten  years  separates  this  from  the 
next  play,  one  of  his  best.  The  She-Wolf  (La  Lwpa)  (1896). 
Pina,  the  She-Wolf,  is  a  village  Messalina,  a  depraved 
creature,  who  in  her  lust  for  a  young  farmer,  Nanni, 
sacrifices  to  him  her  daughter  and  her  property,  and 
finally,  having  maddened  him  beyond  endurance  by  her 
machinations,  dies  at  his  hands.  The  She-Wolf  was 
followed  by  the  Bozetti  Scenici,  The  Wolf  Hunt  (La  Caccia 
al  Lwpo)  (1902),  and  The  Fox  Hunt  {La  Caccia  alia  Volpe) 
(1902).  The  former  is  another  abstract  from  Sicilian 
life.    A  husband,  knowing  that  his  wife  receives  a  lover, 


THE  EARLY  REALISTS  73 

returns  suddenly  to  catch  the  man,  but  he  is  too  well 
concealed.  Unable  to  find  anything,  the  husband  goes 
out  again,  locking  the  door  behind  him.  Then  the  lover 
appears,  crazy  with  fear,  thinking  only  of  saving  his  own 
skin,  caring  not  one  whit  for  his  mistress,  seeking  only 
his  own  escape.  But  the  woman,  furious  at  his  cowardice 
and  his  abandonment  of  her,  screams  for  help  as  though 
he  were  assaulting  her.  Her  husband  returns  gun  in 
hand  and  calls  to  his  comrades  outside,  "Come  on  in 
here  !  The  wolf  we  were  looking  for  is  caught  in  my 
trap."  The  other  play.  The  Fox  Hunt,  is  Verga's  one 
excursion  into  the  society  drama,  fortunately  an  un- 
successful one.  His  last  play  is  another  dramatization, 
—  of  his  own  novel,  Dal  tuo  al  mio  (1905). 

The  main  criticism  to  be  offered  on  the  plays  of  Giovanni 
Verga  is  on  the  score  of  their  violence.  They  all  seem 
to  have  need  of  a  "fait  divers"  to  hold  them  together. 
Every  one  is  reeking  with  lust,  crime  and  murder ;  adul- 
tery, suicide,  and  homicide  seemed  to  be  his  stock  in 
trade.  He  has  missed  all  the  poetry,  the  sunny  good 
humor,  the  native  courtesy  and  piety  of  Sicilian  life. 
E.  Boutet,  usually  a  keen  critic,  maintains  that  this  very 
violence  of  Verga's  vitiates  to  a  large  degree  the  im- 
pression of  reality  one  might  derive  from  the  plays. 
Verga,  he  says,  pretends  that  his  people  are  real,  but  he 
is,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  all  the  while  playing  to  the  gallery, 
showing  not  the  real  Sicilians  but  those  stock  charac- 
teristics which  foreigners  attribute  conventionally  to 
them;  characteristics  enhanced  by  the  heated  imagina- 
tion of  one  who  may  well  be  classed  as  a  neurotic.  But 
Boutet  fails  to  see  or  chooses  to  ignore  the  fact  that  Verga 
views  only  one  aspect  of  his  subject,  the  piteous  and  the 


74  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

disagreeable.  To  every  artist  must  be  accorded  the 
right  to  choose  his  subject-matter,  and  the  angle  from 
which  he  will  view  it;  if  by  choice  or  by  temperament 
he  sees  evil  and  disaster  alone,  his  work  is  only  less  com- 
plete, not  less  true.  Verga's  limitations  are  partly  the 
limitations  of  his  mind  and  partly  those  of  his  method, 
they  are  inherent  in  the  appeal  and  the  program  of  the 
earlier  naturalism.  If  he  did  not  see  life  whole,  he  saw 
very  clearly  such  sections  of  life  as  he  chose  to  observe. 
If  he  handled  only  the  horrible  and  the  painful,  he  handled 
them  with  tremendous  power. 

The  portrayal  of  character  is  Verga's  forte.  His  keen 
eye,  his  unfaltering  decision,  his  trained  and  trenchant 
pen  project  upon  the  lurid  background  of  his  plays  un- 
forgettable dark  and  menacing  figures  scorched  into  our 
consciousness,  —  Rembrandtesque  figures  touched  with 
sparse  high  lights,  darkening  into  dense  shadows. 

The  creator  of  these  persons  has  entered  into  their 
lives,  has  adopted  their  speech,  thought  their  thoughts, 
been  harrowed  by  their  superstitions,  has  become,  for 
the  nonce,  the  person  he  is  presenting.  That  is  Verga's 
psycho-imaginative  grasp  on  his  characters.  But  he 
was  not  a  psychological  thinker  like  Giacosa;  there  is 
no  mental  development  in  the  case  of  any  of  his  persons, 
they  are  static  and  we  leave  them  at  the  same  point  emo- 
tionally and  intellectually  at  which  we  found  them  — 
one  of  the  reasons  why  Verga  is  best  in  short  plays. 

Truth  was  his  motto  and  his  watchword,  and  he  felt 
with  Sainte-Beuve  that  if  the  True  were  present  then 
the  Good  and  the  Beautiful  might  come  off  as  best  they 
could ;  so  he  cared  not  for  inspiration  or  for  homiletics. 
He  studied  and  presented  only  the  disagreeable  side  of 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  75 

nature,  but  that  is  largely  because  he  possessed  so  deep 
a  sense  of  the  tragedy  of  the  humble.  "He  has  the  sense 
of  the  love  that  kills  with  its  intensity,  of  fatality,  of 
death.  These  dull-witted  peasants  are  in  the  grasp  of  a 
power  greater  than  themselves,  they  are  but  pawns  in 
the  terrible  game  of  life,  condemned  by  destiny  to  un- 
happiness,  controlled  by  their  desires  and  lusts,  the  sub- 
merged. The  Vanquished." 

These  words  of  Monello,  making  only  a  slight  reserva- 
tion, may  be  taken  as  placing  Verga  in  his  proper  niche 
in  the  gallery  of  literary  history:  "Verga  did  not  open 
the  sea  like  Moses  to  allow  a  whole  people  to  pass;  he 
opened  a  road  bathed  in  brilliant  sunlight  through  the 
Italian  theatre,  and  sent  over  it  only  a  few  living  people. 
But  after  Rustic  Chivalry,  it  will  not  be  possible  to  close 
that  road  again.  The  contemporary  drama  must  from 
now  on  traverse  it."  So  far  as  it  pays  tribute  to  Verga 
as  a  "road-breaking"  influence  and  as  the  never- to-be 
neglected  exponent  of  reality,  Monello's  verdict  is  au- 
thoritative. But  Monello  did  not  foresee  D'Annunzio 
and  Sem  Benelli. 

Certain  aspects  of  Verism  were  behind  the  revival  of 
popular  drama  in  Naples  which  is  associated  with  the 
names  of  Salvatore  di  Giacomo,  and  Goffredo  Cognetti, 
his  collaborator  in  several  plays.  A  discussion  of  these 
playwrights  and  their  plays  has  its  proper  place  in  another 
chapter,  but  a  word  needs  to  be  said  here  to  connect  them 
legitimately  with  Verga  and  Capuana. 

The  ideal  of  the  Neapolitans  was  to  create  a  local  drama 
by  presenting  on  the  stage  faithful  reproductions  of  the 
life  —  activities,  persons,  feelings  —  of  contemporary 
Naples,  —  the  Camorra,  the  lottery,  the  cafe ;  the  people 


76  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

of  the  streets  —  the  crab-meat  vendor,  the  money-changer, 
the  scolding  woman  —  all  as  they  lived  and  spoke.  But 
here,  in  this  objective  presentation,  the  Neapolitans 
rested;  they  were  no  theorizers,  they  cared  not  at  all 
for  the  impassibility  of  the  artist,  the  simplification  of 
the  action,  the  denudation  of  the  dialogue,  the  other 
Verist  principles  which  Verga  observed. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  Italian  Verism  is  almost 
entirely  the  product  of  South  Italy  and,  if  not  classical, 
is  certainly  anti-Romantic,  as  witness  its  simplicity, 
its  search  for  truth,  its  insistence  upon  the  merely  human 
aspect  of  its  art.  Concerning  these  distinctions,  Karl 
Vossler,  in  his  Italienische  Literatur  der  Gegenwart,  says, 
"  The  program  of  verism,  which  demanded  an  impersonal, 
cold,  learned  art,  is  better  suited  to  the  South  Italians  — 
the  Sicilians,  the  Abruzzese,  the  Neapolitans,  and  the 
Romans  —  than  to  the  Lombards  and  Piedmontese ;  and 
their  spiritual  and  fantastic  temperaments,  to  which 
Romanticism  is  a  poison,  have  here  found  an  antidote.'* 

Gerolamo  Rovetta  (1853-1910)  must  be  mentioned, 
being  the  author  of  twenty-five  or  thirty  plays,  some  ten 
of  which  are  worthy  to  be  considered  in  a  historical  or 
critical  study.  Indeed,  one  of  them,  Romanticism,  may 
be  said  to  rival  Giacosa's  As  the  Leaves  in  theatrical 
popularity.  Its  present  vogue  in  Italy,  twenty  years 
after  its  first  production,  is  astonishing.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  this  play  lies  quite  outside  Rovetta's  natural  vein, 
his  talent  being  not  at  all  for  melodrama  and  the  his- 
torical drama,  but  for  the  prose  piece  of  ordinary  con- 
temporary life. 

Though  he  has  to  his  credit  several  successful  plays, 
Rovetta  cannot  be  called  a  playwright  of  the  first  rank. 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  77 

He  is  too  facile ;  he  is  too  pessimistic  —  not  tragically, 
after  the  manner  of  the  great  pessimists  —  but  ironically 
and  sarcastically  pessimistic;  in  matters  of  technic  he 
is  guilty  of  ill-digested  plots,  muddy  action,  vague  char- 
acterizations. His  saving  qualities  are  ready  short- 
hand conventional  psychology  that  explains  his  action, 
a  keen  eye  for  a  good  situation,  and  some  genuine  skill 
in  depicting  his  chosen  milieux. 

Gerolamo  Rovetta  was  born  of  a  fine  old  family  of 
wealth  and  position,  and  grew  up  in  the  tradition  of  the 
leisure  class  into  a  gilded  youth,  idling  away  his  time  in 
the  theatre  and  in  amorous  intrigues.  Consequently  he 
knew  at  first  hand  certain  aspects  of  the  contemporary 
life  of  fashion  among  the  young  aristocracy.  He  had 
good  stuff  in  him  and  refused  to  be  contented  with  the 
ordinary  existence  of  his  class.  He  adopted  the  theatre 
as  a  profession  and  stuck  to  it  in  a  professional  way. 

It  is  said  that  his  first  play  came  into  being  as  a  result 
of  mere  pique.  He  was  courting  a  fashionable  actress, 
and  went  with  her  to  view  the  first  performance  of  a 
play  by  one  of  his  rivals.  The  young  Rovetta  set  out 
to  ruin  the  performance,  making  inopportune  and  de- 
risive remarks,  laughing  in  the  serious  places,  and  in 
general  behaving  so  scandalously  that  at  last  his  com- 
panion could  bear  it  no  longer  and  turned  upon  him  in 
anger.  "At  least  your  friend  has  written  a  play,"  she 
cried ;  "  as  for  you !  You  are  good  for  nothing  except 
to  knot  your  cravat."  She  had  made  a  palpable  hit. 
"Very  well,"  Rovetta  replied,  "this  fellow  has  written  a 
play  in  two  acts.  I'll  write  one  also,  in  four  acts,  and 
instantly.  You  shall  see."  He  could  better  the  quantity 
if  not  the  quality !     True  to  his  word  he  soon  appeared 


78  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

with  the  four-act  drama.  After  several  failures,  he  wrote 
his  first  success,  In  the  City  of  Rome  (Alia  citta  di  Roma) 
(1887).  It  is  not  a  very  good  play,  and  the  public  was 
no  more  indulgent  to  Rovetta  than  he  had  been  to  his 
rival.  He  was  looked  upon  as  an  amateur,  not  to  be  taken 
seriously,  a  mere  dabbler  in  dramatics.  But  his  critics 
were  wrong ;  he  had  found  his  calling  and  was  not  to  be 
discouraged  by  criticisms  or  ridicule. 

Rovetta's  first  genuinely  good  play  in  the  opinion  of 
most  critics  was  Dorina's  Trilogy,  which,  though  it  was 
too  satiric  and  bitter  to  hold  the  boards  long,  had  an 
immense  succes  d'estime  and  wide  influence  in  promoting 
the  realistic  drama  then  coming  into  vogue.  Dorina's 
Trilogy  {La  Trilogia  di  Dorina)  (1887)  reveals  Rovetta's 
qualities  and  defects  as  realistic  dramatist.  It  displays 
his  expert  handling  of  milieux  and  exposes  his  cardboard 
superficiality  of  characterization.  In  essence,  it  is  the 
representation  of  three  milieux,  three  classes  of  modern 
society,  —  the  aristocratic,  the  wretched,  and  the  equiv- 
ocal. It  follows  the  career  of  a  young  girl  of  humble 
origin,  first  as  governess  in  a  noble  family,  then  in  the 
process  of  surrendering  her  honor,  and  finally,  utterly 
depraved,  as  the  cruel,  cold,  and  scheming  adventuress. 
Rovetta  has  made  the  most  of  his  material  in  showing 
Dorina's  successive  surroundings,  but  has  completely 
failed  to  follow  her  inner  and  spiritual  disintegration. 
A  disagreeable  play,  Dorina's  Trilogy  has  about  it  the 
fascination  of  an  intense  Zolaesque  reality. 

A  much  better  play  from  the  point  of  view  of  dramatic 
construction  and  psychological  development  is  The 
Dishonest  Men  {I  Disonesti)  (1892).  Here  is  expounded 
a  favorite  doctrine  of  Rovetta's,  a  doctrine  reaflBrmed  in 


THE  EARLY  REALISTS  79 

many  other  recent  plays,  notably  in  John  Galsworthy's 
Justice,  —  that  circumstances,  not  principles,  decide 
conduct  and  make  good  and  bad  men.  As  to  Tolstoi 
and  Dostoievski,  to  Rovetta  the  criminal  is  not  blame- 
worthy, he  is  only  unfortunate.  Crime  reduces  itself 
to  disease,  physical  or  moral;  as  one  of  the  characters 
in  this  play  exclaims,  "One  is  not  born  dishonest." 

Still  another  study  of  contemporary  life,  the  tragedy 
Reality  {La  Realta)  (1895),  presents  the  same  faults  and 
merits  as  The  Dishonest  Men.  Rovetta  puts  the  socialists 
and  revolutionaries  on  the  witness  stand  and  subjects 
them  to  a  searching  interrogatory.  Revolutions,  he 
feels,  trouble  only  the  surface  of  society,  change  only 
the  external  appearances  of  government,  but  never  touch 
the  great  stagnant  depths  of  humanity  which  remain 
forever  the  same.  The  idealist  is  the  only  one  who  reaps 
the  consequences  of  his  upheaval,  and  a  bitter  crop  it  is. 
The  great  inanimate  body  of  the  race  remains  always  the 
same,  actuated  by  the  same  lusts,  none  the  less  ugly  in 
moments  of  social  idealism  than  in  times  of  stagnation. 
Humanity  is  everywhere  cowardly  and  base  is  the  moral 
to  be  drawn  from  this  disagreeable  play. 

Others  of  Rovetta's  numerous  realistic  plays  are  The 
Hubbub  (La  Baraonda)  (1894),  which  contains  the  sinister 
figure  of  Matteo  Cantasirena,  professor,  advocate,  knight 
and  even  colonel,  the  arriviste  who  will  stop  at  nothing 
to  gain  his  ends;  The  Olive  Branch  (II  Ramo  d'Ulivo) 
(1899),  and  finally  Papa  Eccellenza  (1906),  a  fine  char- 
acter study,  one  of  Rovetta's  few  good  ones.  The  good 
old  man  sacrifices  everything,  his  fortune,  his  name,  his 
reputation,  to  an  unworthy  and  ungrateful  daughter. 
The  title  role  is  a  favorite  one  with  the  great  actor  Novelli. 


80  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

While  his  best  work  was  done  in  the  drama  of  con- 
temporary life,  Rovetta  tried  his  hand  as  most  of  his 
contemporaries  at  the  historical  play ;  indeed  he  achieved 
his  greatest  single  success  here  with  Romanticism.  Those 
that  stand  out  are  Beginning  of  the  Century  {Principio  di 
Secolo)  (1896),  Romanticism  (Romanticisms)  (1901),  The 
Buffoon  King  {II  re  hurkme)  (1905)  and  Molihe  and  his 
Wife  {Holier e  e  la  sun  moglie)  (1909).  These  are  of 
various  degress  of  merit  but  on  the  whole  are  less  notable 
than  those  produced  in  the  other  manner.  As  soon  as 
Rovetta  gets  oflP  of  his  firm  ground,  as  soon  as  he  enters 
milieux  he  is  not  accurately  acquainted  with,  he  falls 
back  on  his  knowledge  of  dramatic  technic  and  produces 
plays  like  those  of  Sardou  and  Scribe,  dependent  for 
their  appeal  not  on  truth  but  on  the  well-known  tricks  of 
the  dramatic  prestidigitators,  making  the  restless  and 
hectic  appeal  of  situation,  suspense  and  surprise.  In- 
deed Rovetta  has  been  called  "Le  Sardou  Italien"  in 
acknowledgment  of  his  savant  construction  and  his  suc- 
culent dialogue. 

The  Italian  success  of  Romanticism  was  equaled  by 
that  of  no  other  contemporary  play  except  Giacosa's 
As  the  Leaves.  Like  the  history  plays  of  Marenco  in  the 
sixties,  it  appealed  to  a  certain  Chauvinism  and  made  a 
telling  plea  to  the  deep  hatred  for  the  Austrians  which 
lived  on  in  Italy.  It  flattered  the  civic  sensibilities  of 
his  compatriots.  Furthermore,  Rovetta  was  undergoing 
a  reaction  against  his  own  earlier  pessimism  toward  a 
nobler  ideahsm  —  against  "la  plate  realite"  towards  a 
truth  that  embodied  a  great  idea.  He  wrote  an  article 
in  the  Rassegna  Nazionale  in  which  occurs  this  passage: 
"The  historical  drama  is  not  reborn  through  a  love  of 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  81 

history  itself,  but  because  of  an  idealistic  reaction  .  .  . 
truth  has  fallen  to-day  into  too  vulgar  a  verity,  and  the 
public  wants  ...  a  truth  enveloped  in  a  certain  idealism. 
It  has  had  enough  in  the  theatre  of  these  platitudes  added 
to  those  it  encounters  in  everyday  life." 

This  famous  drama  is  a  presentation  of  an  early  in- 
cident of  the  Italian  war  of  liberation.  The  Count 
Lambertini,  young,  noble,  an  aristocrat  every  inch,  joins 
the  conspiracy  of  the  bourgeois  against  the  Austrians. 
(The  scene  in  which  he  pronounces  the  oath  of  allegiance 
to  the  Italian  cause  is  in  the  really  grand  manner.)  We 
follow  him  through  three  acts  of  intrigue  until  his  appre- 
hension by  the  enemy.  A  secondary  interest  is  his  falling 
in  love  with  his  wife ;  theirs  had  been  purely  a  marriage 
of  convenience,  but  now  in  his  trouble,  he  finds  in  her  a 
stanch  ally  of  the  Cause  and  a  faithful  loving  companion. 

The  mechanism  of  Romanticism  creaks  rather  badly 
at  times,  Rovetta  is  very  prodigal  of  his  material,  the  plot 
is  disconnected  and  the  characterization  conventional,  but 
it  lives  by  virtue  of  effective  situations,  many  lively 
speeches  and  an  atmosphere  of  fiery  patriotism.  It  is 
good  melodrama  and  at  the  same  time  is  an  authentic 
picture  of  the  mind  of  Italy  in  the  fifties  —  its  aspirations 
toward  freedom  and  unity  —  a  state  of  mind  contemptu- 
ously called  by  the  Austrian  oppressors  "Romanticism." 
The  play  appeared,  too,  when  people  were  hungering  for 
just  such  material ;  its  appeal  was  deepened  by  the  fact 
that  the  memory  of  the  events  it  reflected  was  still  fresh 
in  the  minds  of  many  a  spectator.  In  a  sense,  indeed, 
the  whole  contemporary  Italian  audience  took  part  in 
the  action  of  Romanticism,  reliving  experiences  and 
emotions  through  which  they  had  but  lately  passed. 


82  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

The  Buffoon  King,  another  history,  deals  with  this  same 
epoch,  so  fascinating  and  so  important  to  modern  Italy. 
Moliere  and  his  Wife  shows  the  unhappy  marital  ventm-e 
of  the  great  French  comedian  and  his  Armande.  All 
these  historical  plays  exhibit  those  qualities  and  the 
defects  that  have  been  studied  in  some  detail  in  Roman- 
ticism. 

His  crowning  and  distinctive  ability  was  his  power  in 
presenting  social  life  —  the  persons  and  the  surroundings 
—  and  he  is  convincing  only  when  he  is  using  material 
gathered  at  first  hand.  Therefore  he  will  ultimately  be 
admired  for  The  Trilogy  of  Dorina  rather  than  for  Ro- 
manticism. 

Rovetta's  best  gift  and  his  best  achievement  was  the 
painting  of  milieux.  Here  he  produced  marvelous  illu- 
sions. His  weakest  point  was  his  failure  to  grasp  the 
humanity  of  his  persons  —  to  portray  them  in  the  round ; 
only  once  does  he  record  a  deep  and  ennobling  passion,  — 
that  of  fatherhood,  in  Papa  Eccellenza.  And  the  morality 
both  reflected  and  adumbrated  in  all  the  plays  is  the 
familiar  society  morality  of  "What  will  people  say?" 
When  one  encounters  again  and  again  this  utilitarian 
and  opportunist  morality,  he  is  impelled  to  ask,  "Is  it 
possible  that  this  is  a  contemporary  of  Henrik  Ibsen  ?  " 

But  he  has  one  supreme  merit :  he  can  write  a  good 
play,  swift-moving,  compact,  full  of  tense  situations. 
M.  Muret's  praise  of  him  is  possibly  too  generous  but 
it  is  only  fair  to  quote  it :  "M.  Rovetta  gives  to  a  nicety 
the  illusion  of  life.  His  people  love  and  hate,  enjoy  and 
suffer  with  an  intensity  which  communicates  itself  to 
the  spectator.  Their  destinies  may  be  vulgar;  they 
are  not  indifferent  or  tiresome.    You  hate  the  villains, 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  83 

you  pity  the  beautiful  and  gentle  victims.  M.  Rovetta 
interests  us,  diverts  us,  moves  us." 

There  are  on  the  Italian  dramatic  roster  the  names  of 
two  women  whose  work  falls  in  the  nineties  and  belongs 
in  the  earlier  realism,  —  Signore  Amalia  Rosselli  and 
Teresa  Ubertis,  the  latter  better  known  by  her  pen  name 
of  Teresah. 

Mme.  Rosselli  sprang  suddenly  into  fame  when  in 
1898  her  play  The  Soul  (Anima)  won  first  prize  in  the 
great  national  competition.  Married  to  a  wealthy  hus- 
band, Madame  Rosselli  has  cultivated  her  dramatic 
gifts  unprofessionally,  almost  secretly  —  to  what  good 
purpose  is  revealed  by  a  study  of  The  Soul.  She  has 
written  one  other  play,  IlluMon  (Illu^ione)  (1901),  not 
so  successful  as  the  first,  but  possessing  genuine  merit. 
The  problem  of  this  second  play  is  a  harrowing  one  —  Can 
a  man  forgive  his  wife  who  has  been  unfaithful  to  him, 
even  when  he  desires  to  forgive  her,  and  her  unfaithful- 
ness is  not  voluntary  ?  Emma,  innocent  herself,  has  been 
betrayed  and  seduced ;  her  husband  tries  to  forgive,  but 
his  efforts  are  so  fruitless  that  Emma,  though  she  hates 
her  seducer,  cannot  endure  the  tortures  her  husband 
inflicts  upon  her  in  the  process  of  forgetting  and  forgiving ; 
and  she  finally  revolts  and  leaves  him. 

The  Soul  might  have  been  written  by  Bjornsen  or  Ibsen, 
so  logical  and  clear  is  its  thinking,  so  opposed  its  ethical 
principles  to  the  typical  Latin  prejudices.  Olga,  a  striking 
young  girl,  lives  an  artist's  life  in  Rome,  one  of  a  group  of 
emancipated  thinkers.  In  her  studio  gather  the  radicals 
of  all  shades.  Olga  herself  is  in  constant  and  violent 
rebellion  against  the  obscurities,  the  prejudices,  the  con- 
ventional lies  of  the  world.    Above  all,  the  education 


84  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

of  young  girls  is  the  object  of  her  bitter  ridicule.  She 
is  angered  by  the  indecent  care  taken  to  hide  from  girls 
the  mysteries  of  sex  life,  an  obscurantism  which  results 
all  too  often  in  awakening  evil  curiosities,  in  producing 
perversions.  Olga  is  courted  by  a  young  man  of  the 
world,  Silvio;  to  him  she  confesses  that  she  had  been 
violated  by  a  brute  when  she  was  quite  a  young  girl. 
She  tells  of  her  horror  and  despair.  How  little  by  little, 
however,  she  had  recovered.  She  had  reasoned  with 
herself, ""  Poor  girl,  haven't  you  a  soul  left  to  you  ?  A  soul 
which  is  virgin  ?  A  second  virginity  which  is  still  yours  ? 
And  then  I  thought  of  the  man  who  should  possess  it 
some  day,  this  spotless  soul,  who  should  inscribe  his 
name  upon  it."  Silvio  is  this  man.  But  he  is  a  con- 
ventional and  cowardly  thing  who  cannot  comprehend 
this  virginity  of  the  soul.  He  casts  Olga  off,  to  marry  a 
snip  of  a  woman  who  though  physically  maiden  is,  as 
Olga  puts  it,  "a  cocotte  in  soul."  He  regrets  too  late 
his  irreparable  error  of  choice. 

Teresah,  better  known  for  her  novels,  wrote  in  1902 
The  Judge  {II  Giudice),  which  deserves  a  place  in  any 
repertory.  The  title  role  is  that  of  the  honorable  and 
upright  Marco  Stairini,  the  model  judge.  The  rich  man 
of  the  community  in  a  lawsuit  against  a  neighbor  tries 
to  influence  the  judge,  but  fails.  However,  at  the  trial  it 
seems  that  the  rich  man  is  in  the  right,  and  Stairini  gives 
a  decision  in  his  favor.  Immediately  fortune  smiles  upon 
him,  favors  come  his  way.  The  rich  man's  son  marries 
his  daughter.  His  neighbors  are  not  slow  in  voicing  their 
suspicions  that  he  has  been  bribed.  At  last  he  himself 
begins  to  wonder  if  indeed  he  had  been  influenced  in  his 
decision.     "They  cried  to  my  face  that  I  had  sold  myself 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  85 

—  But  it's  not  true.  It's  not  true  !"  The  play  is  very 
Italian,  very  human,  a  wonderful  psychological  study. 

Other  plays  of  Teresah's  are  On  the  Goerner  {Sul  Goerner) 
(1902)  and  Red  Bread  {II  Pane  rosso)  (1903),  The  Other 
Bank  {L'Altra  riva)  (1907) ;  Happiness  {La  Felicita)  and 
Not  to  die  {Per  nan  morire)  (1910). 

Marco  Praga  (1862-  ),  the  other  realist  of  the  period 
who  must  be  put  beside  Rovetta,  has  been  called  the 
Italian  Paul  Hervieu,  and  it  is  true  that  he  has  some  things 
in  common  with  his  French  contemporary.  He  has  the 
same  logical,  almost  geometrical,  certainty  of  mind,  the 
same  tendency  to  create  abstractions,  the  same  cold  and 
critical  point  of  view,  the  same  lack  of  power  to  create 
human  interest  in  his  characters.  Hervieu  has,  however, 
a  moral  slant  totally  missing  in  Praga.  The  Frenchman 
has  constantly  a  concern  for  the  good  of  the  race.  But 
Praga  goes  Flaubert  one  better  in  his  famous  dictum  of 
"art  for  art's  sake",  and  formulates  a  doctrine  of  "the 
theatre  for  the  theatre's  sake."  He  reacted  even  more 
violently  than  did  Rovetta  against  the  didacticism  of 
Giacosa  and  his  group. 

Marco  Praga  was  born  at  Milan  in  1862  of  cultured  and 
sympathetic  parents.  His  father,  one  of  the  minor 
romantic  poets,  overcome  with  Weltschmerz,  felt  that 
society  was  persecuting  him.  He  was  bitter  and  satiric 
in  his  attacks  upon  the  prejudices  and  what  he  esteemed 
the  moral  hypocrisy  of  his  world.  No  doubt  the  young 
Marco  imbibed  from  the  atmosphere  of  his  father's 
house  some  of  his  own  hatred  of  accepted  standards. 
But  he  imbibed  also  other  and  better  things,  —  a  devotion 
to  art,  a  respect  for  literature,  and  a  love  of  it  which 
enabled  him  to  sacrifice  the  relative  certainty  of  a  good 


86  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

living  as  a  bank  clerk  in  favor  of  the  precarious  career  of 
a  writer  of  plays. 

Praga's  devotion  to  his  chosen  calling  sustained  him 
through  the  well-nigh  complete  failure  of  his  first  play, 
The  Two  Houses  (Le  due  case)  (1887),  written  in  collabo- 
ration with  Virgilio  Colombo,  and  fortified  him  in  the 
production  of  The  Friend  (UAmico)  (1888),  a  play  in  one 
act  which  enjoyed  a  considerable  run.  This  promising 
little  play  shows  qualities  which  clearly  prophesy  Praga's 
subsequent  performance.  The  plot  is  simplicity  itself : 
a  woman  tries  to  recover  certain  letters  she  had  written 
to  a  lover  now  dead,  but  her  husband  forestalls  her  in 
the  possession  of  them,  and  discovers  her  faithlessness; 
so  far  it  sounds  a  bit  conventional,  but  Praga  adds  a 
distinctive  touch.  The  husband  does  not  murder  her  in 
the  old  romantic  way ;  he  does  not  blast  her  with  thun- 
derous denunciations;  he  does  the  ordinary  bourgeois 
thing.  He  says,  "You  low  creature,  suppose  I  were  to 
kill  you  !  But  I  shall  not.  Get  out  !  I  shall  not  kill 
you.  I  shall  not  do  anything  to  you.  Leave  I"  Con- 
ciseness and  directness  such  as  this  are  constant  elements 
of  Praga's  strength. 

Like  Verga,  he  exemplifies  the  naturalistic  principle  of 
the  impassibility  of  the  artist.  Praga  may  even  be 
called  the  most  pitiless  of  artists.  He  seems  to  have 
schooled  himself  to  complete  indifference  as  to  the  emo- 
tional experiences  of  his  characters;  so  he  never  calls 
on  his  audience  for  sympathy  or  appreciation.  However, 
as  he  goes  on,  he  develops  a  certain  cynical  and  almost 
ferocious  irony,  which  contradicts  his  theoretical  im- 
passibility. He  acquires  and  nourishes  a  desolate  con- 
ception of  existence.    He  denies  the  actuality  of  a  good 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  87 

motive;  he  avers,  in  effect,  that  there  is  no  virtue,  no 
faithfulness,  no  purity.  Under  the  plea  that  he  presents 
mere  truth,  he  debases  all  sentiment,  drags  all  ideals  in 
the  mud,  suppresses  all  generous  impulses,  clips  all  wings. 
He  is  the  very  type  of  the  disillusioned  intellectual  and 
cynical  viveur. 

The  three  plays  that  followed  The  Friend  were  not 
successful;  they  were  Giuliana,  The  Spell  (U Incanio) 
and  Mater  Dolorosa.  But  in  1889  with  The  Virgins 
(/  Vergini)  Praga  more  than  fulfilled  the  expectations  of 
his  admirers  and  the  promise  of  the  first  two  plays.  This 
was  followed  in  1891  by  The  Ideal  Wife  (La  Moglie 
Ideale),  another  successful  play.  Immediately  after  this 
there  occurred  a  change  in  Praga  which  forces  us  to  divide 
his  work  into  two  distinct  periods  and  almost  into  two  dis- 
tinct kinds. 

Between  The  Ideal  Wife  and  his  next  play,  in  the  short 
while  between  1891  and  1893,  Praga  experienced  an  artistic 
degeneration  and  disillusionment.  He  began  to  seek 
popularity,  writing  for  success  regardless  of  art.  In 
1889  Praga  wrote  of  The  Virgins,  "I  am  not  in  doubt 
about  my  work.  ...  I  am  assured  as  to  the  artistic  value 
of  my  play.  I  have  tried  to  produce  something  true, 
something  human." 

The  creed  reflected  in  this  youthful  utterance  may  be 
contrasted  with  that  voiced  by  the  protagonist  of  his 
short  story  The  Rehearsal,  a  theatrical  director,  fairly  to 
be  taken  as  Praga's  mouthpiece.  He  is  giving  advice 
to  a  young  playwright  of  the  "  symbolico-mystico-phil- 
osophic  school;  and  he  points  out  that  the  practical 
exigencies  of  the  theatre  in  Italy  demand  the  sacrifice 
of  art  to  success.     "Oh,  these  young  people,"  he  says; 


88  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

"  they  have  ideas  in  abundance  and  they  want  to  express 
them  all.  But  no  I  the  dramatic  author  must  impose 
sacrifices  on  the  thinker." 

The  Virgins  (7  Virgini)  (1889)  brought  fame  and 
material  success  to  its  youthful  author.  The  Virgins  of 
the  title,  called  a  few  years  later  by  Marcel  Prevost  Les 
Demi-Vierges,  are  young  women  who  are  ready  to  sell 
their  charms  to  the  highest  bidder.  They  are  neither 
virgins  nor  yet  abandoned  creatures,  —  their  status  is 
ambiguous,  their  virtue  equivocal.  They  are  rather 
typical  denizens  of  the  demi-monde.  A  certain  Mme. 
Delfina  Tossi,  a  widow,  has  three  marriageable  daughters, 
but  they  are  "people  one  doesn't  marry",  as  one  of  the 
characters  expresses  it.  Their  house  is  a  resort  for  all 
the  roues  of  the  city,  who  pay  shameless  court  to  the  two 
shameless  younger  sisters,  but  who  are  rebuffed  by  the 
elder,  Paolina,  a  morose  silent  girl,  who  appears  in  the 
house  but  cannot  take  part  in  its  activities.  She  has  a 
real  lover  (in  the  Anglo-Saxon  sense),  a  certain  young 
Dario  who  adores  her.  Paolina  returns  his  affection,  but 
is  tortured  by  a  terrible  secret,  a  remorse.  His  asking  her 
hand  in  marriage  wrings  from  her  the  terrible  truth.  She 
loves  him  and  wants  to  be  his  wife  but  feels,  honest  as 
she  is,  that  she  must  tell  him  she  had  been  the  mistress 
of  an  old  friend  of  the  family,  sold  to  him  when  a  mere 
girl  in  an  infamous  bargain.  She  has  always  felt  a  horrible 
revulsion  and  terror  of  the  deed.  But  Dario  cannot  stand 
the  test ;  he  is  cowardly  and  weak  and  he  flees  from  her 
presence.  The  next  day  he  returns,  but  only  to  propose 
a  disgraceful  and  sordid  liaison,  —  they  will  not  be  married 
but  will  flee  together  to  some  remote  spot.  Paolina 
repudiates  the  plan  with  all  her  soul.    At  every  moment 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  89 

she  rises  in  moral  grandeur  as  her  lover  descends,  until 
at  last  Dario  flees  the  house  and  the  temptation  to  make 
an  offer  of  marriage  to  her.  Logical  to  the  end,  Praga 
diminishes  not  one  jot  the  terrific  force  of  prejudice  which 
extorts  the  sacrifice  of  love,  honor,  and  intelligence. 

Praga's  own  favorite  among  his  plays  was  The  Ideal 
Wife  {La  Moglie  Ideale)  (1890).  Here  he  has  approached 
nearest,  he  thinks,  to  fulfilling  his  ideal  of  dramatic  art. 
Here,  with  that  impassibility  which  was  the  first  canon  of 
his  creed,  holding  no  brief  for  or  against  society,  creating 
as  he  believed  a  play  for  its  own  sake,  he  has  put  in  ironic 
comparison  the  baseness  of  man  and  the  criminality  of 
woman. 

The  Ideal  Wife  is  Giulia  Campiani,  "who,  having  a 
lover,  remains  a  good  wife,  respectful  and  affectionate  to 
her  husband ;  who  evades  scandals  and  the  unhappiness 
of  her  children  and  keeps  peace  in  her  home,  not  a  patched- 
up  peace,  a  peace  of  convention,  but  real  contentment." 
She  succeeds  in  belonging  to  two  men  at  the  same  time, 
—  to  her  lover  with  her  heart,  to  her  husband  with  her 
self.  But  her  lover  grows  weary  of  her,  wishing  to 
marry  and  settle  down.  At  first  she  is  passionate,  re- 
sentful, combative  but  becomes  resigned  to  her  fate. 
The  play  is  one  piece  of  pitiless  irony  —  the  very  title 
even  —  and  scenes  like  the  first  of  the  play  are  "  inspired  " 
clearly  by  Becque  and  his  famous  opening  passage  of 
La  Parisienne.  Giulia  is  sending  off  her  husband  and 
little  boy  with  every  expression  of  tenderness  and  love. 
She  is  all  solicitude.  A  friend  of  the  family,  a  young  man, 
watches  this  domestic  scene.  No  sooner  is  the  door 
closed  than,  turning  with  a  little  amorous  cry,  she  throws 
herself  into  the  arms  of  the  young  man,  her  lover.    The 


90  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

last  scene  of  all,  in  which  Giulia,  taking  the  arm  of  the 
man,  still  the  "family  friend",  to  go  out  to  dinner,  says 
in  his  ear,  "Don't  leave  me  too  quickly,  for  Andrea  (her 
husband)  could  not  explain  your  conduct",  echoes  and 
reaffirms  the  ironic  cynicism  of  the  first  scene. 

In  The  Virgins  and  The  Ideal  Wife  Praga  had  uttered 
his  message  and  made  his  distinctive  contribution ;  from 
now  on  he  is  revamping  material,  developing,  perhaps, 
in  psychological  detail  but  at  the  sacrifice  of  more  precious 
qualities.  The  Enamoured  Woman  {U Innamorata)  (1892), 
Alleluja  (1893),  The  Heir  (L'Erede)  (1894),  The  Grand- 
mother  {La  Nonna)  (1892)  and  The  Handsome  Apollo 
{II  BerApollo)  (1894)  do  not  contribute  much  to  our 
knowledge  of  Praga.  The  Enamoured  Woman  was  written 
to  give  Eleonora  Duse  a  good  part.  It  is  a  study  of  a 
woman's  love  which  endures  to  the  grave  and  even  be- 
yond it. 

Alleluja  is  a  better  play.  It  is  a  study  of  heredity. 
A  woman  has  been  caught  in  adultery,  but  to  spare  their 
daughter  her  husband  (called  Alleluja  from  his  bon- 
hommie  and  cheerful  manner)  consents  to  pardon  and 
forget.  The  daughter,  growing  up,  marries  the  man  of 
her  choice  and  has  a  lovely  child.  But  the  taint  is  in  her 
blood ;  from  pure  caprice  she  takes  a  lover.  Her  father 
finds  this  out,  and  discovering  in  her  the  failure  of  his  own 
remedy,  forgiveness,  brings  her  to  justice.  Praga  carries 
to  an  absurd  extreme  the  then  newly  popular  doctrine  of 
heredity. 

The  years  from  The  Heir  to  Handsome  Apollo  constitute 
a  period  of  comparative  mediocrity  of  thought  though 
fecund  in  effective  plays.  In  The  Heir  a  dissipated 
nobleman  violates  a  young  girl,  the  daughter  of  a  governess 


THE   EARLY  REALISTS  91 

in  his  house.  His  son  repairs  his  father's  crime  by  marry- 
ing the  innocent  victim.  Handsome  Apollo  is  a  study  of 
a  modern  Don  Juan  in  contemporary  society,  much  the 
same  sort  of  thing  that  Sabatino  Lopez  did  in  his  The 
Beast  and  the  Beauties.      ' 

The  Moral  of  the  Fable  (La  Morale  delta  favola)  is  in 
some  ways  the  converse  of  The  Ideal  Wife.  In  a  moment 
of  erotic  excitement  Lucia  has  given  herself  to  a  man.  But 
this  no  sooner  done  than  she  feels  a  horrible  revulsion  of 
mind  and  body.  Her  remorse  will  not  let  her  return  to  her 
husband  and  her  home.  She  tries  to  take  refuge  with  her 
paramour,  but  he  has  discovered  that  he  does  not  love 
her.  She  wants  to  be  honest,  but  at  last,  for  the  sake  of 
her  husband  and  children,  she  is  forced  to  silence  her  con- 
science and  take  up  again  the  round  of  domestic  life. 

The  Doubt  {II  Duhito)  (1895)  is  one  of  Praga's  search- 
ing psychological  studies.  A  man  is  engaged  to  a  young 
girl,  but  is  tortured  with  a  terrible  doubt.  Will  his  love 
last  beyond  the  satisfaction  of  his  physical  desire?  He 
hesitates  and  questions  himself  and  her  until  when  at  last 
he  decides  that  he  truly  loves  her  he  has  lost  her. 

In  Ondina  (L'  Ondina)  (1904)  Praga  revamps  another 
old  problem :  Can  a  man  marry  a  woman  with  a  suspected 
past  even  though  he  knows  she  is  pure  ?  Praga's  answer 
is  No  !  The  suspicions  of  society  added  to  the  husband's 
jealousies  will  certainly  ruin  the  venture.  L'Ondina 
might  well  be  the  sequel  to  The  Virgins.  The  man's 
greatest  rival  is  his  wife's  own  past. 

The  Crisis  (La  Crisi)  (1904)  is  the  presentation  of  a 
singular  type  of  woman  who  really  belongs  to  her  husband, 
loved  by  him  and  loving  him,  all  the  time,  but  who  can 
be  wholly  his  only  after  The  Crisis  when  she  has  com- 


92  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP   ITALY 

mitted  adultery  and  confessed  it  to  him.  The  play  is 
concerned  with  the  consequent  readjustments.  Praga  has 
written  one  other  play  since  The  Crisis,  The  Closed  Door 
{La  Porta  chiusa)  (1913). 

Praga's  limitation  is  that  his  process  of  selection  was 
narrowed  and  darkened  by  an  intellectual  dyspepsia. 
He  saw  nature  only  as  "the  hog",  activity  as  crime. 
The  drama  is  made  up  of  human  situations  and  the  only 
human  situation  Praga  seemed  to  be  interested  in  pre- 
senting was  one  that  included  adultery.  There  is  no 
relief  from  this  lurid  crime.  With  deadly  recurrence  these 
corrupt  and  misguided  women  meet  us.  The  men  are 
either  the  dupes  of  their  wives  or  partners  in  their  dis- 
grace. What  kind  of  people  could  these  have  been  and 
what  kind  of  world  was  it  he  knew  !  But  his  pessimism 
and  irony  extend  to  all  human  relationships.  His  motto 
apparently  is  "a  quoi  bonf" 

Other  qualities  characteristic  of  his  later  work  are  the 
violence  of  his  emotions,  and  the  theatricality  of  his 
situations.  In  The  Enamoured  Woman  and  The  Heir, 
he  outdoes  the  Grand  Guignol  in  situations  of  horror, 
hate  and  passion,  jealousy  and  remorse.  Like  Dumas 
fils,  as  he  grew  older  and  the  fountain  of  his  artistic  in- 
spiration ran  low,  Praga  resorted  more  and  more  to  tricks 
to  make  his  effects,  violent  contrasts  of  souls,  crude 
antitheses  of  situations  which  could  scarcely  fail  to  offend 
good  taste. 

Though  he  has  had  the  wide  social  experience  of  a  man 
of  the  world  and  must  have  come  into  close  contact  with 
real  men  and  women,  Praga's  lack  of  sympathy  prevented 
his  understanding  them.  The  people  of  his  dramas  are 
not  human  because  they  lack  that  essential  vitality  which 


THE   EARLY   REALISTS  93 

can  be  supplied  only  by  sympathy.  His  studies  of  women 
particularly,  while  they  are  keen,  are  curiously  geomet- 
rical. The  Ideal  Wife,  Paolina  of  The  Virgins,  Eugenia  of 
The  Enamoured  Woman  lay  bare  their  souls  to  us  as  under 
the  scalpel,  but  they  lack  femininity,  sympathy,  humanity. 
His  scepticism  made  Praga's  talent  sterile.  He  never 
carries  his  readers  or  his  spectators  with  him  as  a  more 
virile  and  abounding  talent  would.  He  convinces  but 
does  not  move  or  inspire. 

In  his  earlier  works  Marco  Praga  concerned  himself 
mainly  with  truth.  The  Virgins  and  The  Ideal  Wife  are 
worthy  to  stand  with  Verga's  peasant  plays  as  the  most 
perfect  dramatic  expressions  of  Verism;  and  these  are 
the  two  plays  that  may  hope  to  endure.  It  was  a  grave 
misfortune  that  later,  in  attempting  to  combine  truth 
and  effectiveness,  he  leaned  too  much  toward  the  latter. 
It  was  his  great  fault  to  have  taken  too  narrow  a  view  of 
the  function  of  art,  his  great  merit  to  possess  a  keen 
intelligence  and  a  mastery  of  theatrical  technic. 


CHAPTER  IV 
Gabriele  D'Annunzio 

Poet,  romancer,  dramatist,  orator,  archaeologist,  politi- 
cian and  aviator,  Gabriele  D'Annunzio  is  at  one  and  the 
same  time  the  most  and  the  least  Italian  of  artists.  In 
his  aesthetic  outlook,  in  his  preoccupation  with  the  past, 
in  his  intellectual  and  emotional  reaction  to  stimuli,  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  stimuli  to  which  he  reacts,  he  is  true 
Italian ;  in  his  lack  of  humor,  his  steady  melancholy  deep- 
ening into  pessimism,  his  contempt  for  "  la  gran  hestia 
trionfante",  the  people,  he  exhibits  a  temperament 
quite  unlike  that  of  his  typical  fellow-Italians. 

So  settled  is  his  melancholy,  so  pervasive  his  pessimism, 
that  they  give  color  and  tone  to  all  he  says;  they  both 
constitute  the  first  impression  one  gets  of  him,  and 
linger  longest  in  our  memory  of  him.  One  says,  "Here 
is  an  artist  to  whom  faith,  hope,  charity, — all  the  affirma- 
tive virtues  are  meaningless  terms."  Nor  does  he  seem 
to  have  substituted  for  them,  as  did  Nietzsche,  a  philosophy 
of  virility  and  purposeful  activity.  D'Annunzio's  stren- 
uosity,  his  worship  of  power,  his  admiration  of  cruelty  are 
not  the  headlong  plunge  of  the  indomitable  superman, 
but  rather  the  passionate,  futile  revolt  of  a  weak  man  who 
hates  his  own  weakness.  In  many  other  ways  D'Annunzio 
fails  to  represent  Italy, —  modern  living  Italy, —  and  this 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he  has  taken  part  in  many  national 


GABRIELE  d'aNNUNZIO  95 

activities;  in  spite  of  his  picturesque  dramatic  role  in 
kindling  and  nourishing  the  war  spirit  in  Italy ;  in  spite  of 
his  open  adherence  to  the  philosophy  of  Mcichtpolitik ;  in 
spite,  too,  of  his  short  career  in  politics  during  which  he 
tried  all  varieties,  going  over  from  extreme  conservatism  to 
extreme  radicalism,  only  to  rebound  later  as  a  reactionary. 
He  embodies  the  dead  and  dying  past  of  his  nation,  not  its 
present,  —  economic,  humanitarian,  scientific,  material- 
istic. His  face  is  turned,  not  toward  the  dawn  of  democ- 
racy, of  social  and  political  equality,  economic  develop- 
ment and  international  community,  but  backward  toward 
the  sunset  of  medieval  Rome  and  the  gorgeous  pageant  of 
the  Renaissance.  Nowhere  does  he  strike  a  note  that 
might  not  have  been  struck  by  Dante. 

This  tendency  —  one  may  well  call  it  a  limitation  — 
helps  to  explain  the  fact  that  his  plays  have  not  met 
with  a  success  at  all  comparable  to  that  of  his  poetry  and 
his  novels.  The  drama  appeals  to  a  large  and  promiscuous 
public  and  succeeds  when  it  presents  living  issues  and 
living  situations  in  a  living  way;  novel  and  poetry, 
however,  may  make  their  appeal  to  a  chosen  circle  capable 
of  appreciating  the  charm  of  rare  and  distant  beauty,  of 
aesthetic  and  esoteric  emotion.  It  is  in  the  presentation 
of  such  beauty  and  such  emotions  that  D'Annunzio  excels. 
We  must  be  quite  aware,  then,  that  in  studying  him  as  a 
dramatist  we  are  approaching  him  on  his  least  attractive 
and  least  successful  literary  side. 

His  genius  is  poetic  and  descriptive.  "  His  introspective 
habit  of  mind  and  lack  of  wide  human  sympathy,  his 
genius  which  interprets  suffering  rather  than  doing,  unfit 
him  for  grasping  a  dramatic  action  and  developing  it 
clearly  and  inevitably  before  the  spectator."    He  often 


96  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

resorts  to  the  expedient  of  describing  the  action  in  stage 
directions  instead  of  bringing  it  into  the  dialogue  or  the 
gesture;  frequently  the  crucial  and  climactic  deed  of  a 
drama  takes  place  off  stage,  as  in  La  Gioconda,  in  Fedra 
and  The  Dream  of  an  Autumn  Sunset. 

But  under  the  spell  of  D'Annunzio's  magic  eloquence 
these  blemishes  seem  unimportant.  One  abrogates  his 
critical  judgment  and  finds  himself  carried  away  by  the 
splendor  and  pageantry  of  Francesca  da  Rimini,  The 
Daughter  of  Jorio,  or  The  Martyrdom  of  Saint  Sebastian, 
borne  along  on  a  swelling  flood  of  magnificent  passionate 
language.  D'Annunzio's  pictorial  imagination  is  as 
marvelous  as  his  mastery  of  words,  creating  in  each  scene 
a  stage  picture  of  unparalleled  beauty.  He  has,  also, 
both  a  profound  and  microscopic  insight  into  certain 
kinds  of  souls;  he  is  an  expert  and  subtle  analyst  of  the 
erotic  emotions.  With  all  his  faults  as  a  dramatist,  he 
is  by  virtue  of  these  gifts,  which  are  not  essentially 
dramatic,  the  outstanding  figure  of  the  Italian  stage 
to-day. 

Gabriele  D'Annunzio,  whose  real  name  is  said  to  be 
Rapagnetta,  was  born  in  1864  on  board  the  yacht  Irene, 
lying  on  the  blue  bosom  of  the  Adriatic  not  far  from  Pes- 
cara;  and  in  a  curious  if  not  mystic  way  he  has  kept 
through  his  whole  life  a  love  for  the  sea,  which  seems  at 
times  to  breathe  a  cooling,  cleansing  breath  through  the 
fetid,  hectic  and  violent  atmosphere  of  his  plays.  One 
play.  The  Ship,  may  be  called  in  essence  a  glorification  of 
the  beloved  Adriatic.  While  his  ancestry  is  clouded  in  a 
becoming  mystery,  it  is  rumored  that  he  is  a  Hungarian 
Jew,  —  and  some  biographers  speak  of  his  "  Dalmatian  " 
origin.    He  spent  his  childhood  with  his  parents  at  Ferra- 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  97 

villa  al  Mare  in  Abruzzi  and  then,  in  1878,  was  sent 
to  school  at  Prato,  in  Tuscany.  Here  in  the  little  collegia 
he  received  his  early  education.  The  child  Gabriele  had 
shown  a  marked  inclination  and  talent  for  the  arts  and 
was  taught  painting,  his  models  and  inspiration  being 
mainly  the  pre-Raphaelites,  —  Fra  Filippo  Lippi,  Botti- 
celli, and  above  all  Giotto.  In  this  early  training  he  laid 
the  foundation  of  that  curious  and  exact  knowledge  of 
archaeology  and  of  many  crafts  which  appears  so  con- 
spicuously in  his  work. 

On  a  memorable  day  in  1879  while  he  was  still  a  student 
at  Prato,  a  volume  of  Carducci,  the  "Odi  Barbari",  fell 
into  his  hands.  The  next  day  he  was  a  poet.  Carducci 
became  his  authority  and  his  model,  and  to  him  he  owes 
his  careful  study  of  words,  his  care  for  style,  his  dignity  of 
manner  which  never  falls  into  colloquialism.  From  that 
day  D'Annunzio  has  never  ceased  to  cultivate  his  style 
with  careful  perseverance.  He  has  fed  himself  on  the 
great  Italian  classics,  in  particular  on  Guido  Cavalcanti, 
Cino  da  Pistoja,  Dante,  —  a  nurture  which  has  given  him 
a  slightly  archaic  flavor.  His  vocabulary  is  so  erudite 
and  so  enormous  that  it  has  been  necessary  to  publish  a 
D'Annunzio  dictionary,  a  work  of  two  volumes.  His 
style  —  the  union  of  this  marvelous  vocabulary  with  an 
unfailing  sense  of  the  music  of  speech  and  with  a  never- 
ceasing  flow  of  new,  beautiful,  and  terrible  images  —  is 
his  chief  glory. 

The  first  result  of  his  Carduccian  enthusiasm  was  a 
volume  of  verse,  Primo  Vere,  which  was  hailed  with 
delight  by  the  critics  and  which  raised  the  youthful  author 
to  fame  in  a  day.  The  book  was  the  herald  of  D'Annun- 
zio's  amazing  literary  achievement ;  volume  after  volume 


98  THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

has  followed,  at  least  one  every  year.  In  1860  he  went  to 
Rome  and  began  his  literary  career  professionally  as  one 
of  the  staff  of  the  ultra-modern  Cronica  Bizantina.  Here 
he  came  into  contact  with  many  of  the  artists  who  were  or 
were  destined  to  be  the  masters  of  his  generation  —  in 
especial  Matilda  Serao  and  Giovanni  Pascoli ;  as  he  became 
more  widely  known  in  the  literary  world  he  was  welcomed 
into  the  fashionable  society  of  the  gay  capital.  Women 
attracted  him  and  were  attracted  by  him,  so  that  amour 
after  amour  came  his  way,  giving  him  the  experience  and 
the  opportunity  for  observation  that  equipped  him  as  a 
specialist  in  the  erotic  emotions.  He  seems  to  have  given 
himself  entirely  to  the  pleasure  of  the  senses  and  the 
appetites,  stimulating  sensation  with  sensation  until  the 
inevitable  result  followed,  and  as  always,  mere  pleasure 
turned  to  dust  and  ashes  on  his  tongue.  At  this  epoch 
he  worked  out  his  doctrine  of  purification  through  pleasure. 
Pleasure  it  is  that  develops  character,  and  the  supreme 
man  is  the  one  who  has  experienced  all  the  pleasures  in 
their  greatest  intensity.  Anything  is  therefore  justifiable 
in  the  pursuit  of  this  summum  honum  since  it  is  by  the 
gratification  of  desire  that  man  progresses.  Andrea 
Sperelli,  the  hero  of  D'Annunzio's  first  novel.  Pleasure, 
which  appeared  at  this  time,  is  indubitably  in  many  aspects 
a  portrait  of  the  artist  himself.  It  shows  him  as  possessed 
of  and  by  an  overdeveloped  sexual  sense.  His  deliberate 
and,  as  it  were,  theoretical  gratification  of  desire  led  to 
the  semi-sadistic  attitude  of  Andrea  Sperelli,  who  loves 
one  mistress  in  the  person  of  another.  This  strain  of 
abnormal  desire  and  its  justification  runs  deep  through 
all  his  books  and  plays.  The  changes  are  rung  on  almost 
every  aspect  of  the  sex  instinct.    Desire  furnishes  the 


GABRIELE  d'ANNTJNZIO  99 

motivation  and  constitutes  the  subject-matter  of  nearly 
every  play  —  practically  always  abnormal  as  well  as 
excessive,  taking  the  form  of  incest  in  Fedra  and  The  Dead 
City,  of  adultery  in  Francesca  da  Rimini  or  La  Gioconda 
or  at  times  of  mere  lust,  always  exigent,  brutal,  often 
perverted. 

At  this  time  also,  that  is  during  the  early  years  of  his 
residence  in  Rome,  D'Annunzio  developed  and  broadened 
his  interest  in  the  arts.  He  became  passionately  interested 
in  the  minor  arts,  pottery,  wood-carving,  goldsmith's 
work,  terra-cotta.  His  warmth  of  description  of  fine 
furniture,  of  classical  buildings,  of  beautiful  fabrics,  could 
come  only  from  personal  contact  and  loving  appreciation. 
His  interest  in  these  realien  becomes  later  important  in 
his  handling  of  staging  and  setting ;  each  precious  object 
takes  on  added  significance  when  it  takes  its  place  in  a 
drama. 

In  some  mysterious  way  —  mysterious  when  one  con- 
siders his  other  occupations  —  D'Annunzio  acquired  at 
the  same  time  an  intimate  knowledge  of  the  classics.  He 
has  the  mystical  sixth  sense  for  antiquity  so  that  it  is  to 
him  an  open  book.  Greece  more  than  Rome  attracted 
him,  and  he  mastered  the  life  of  classic  and  Mycenaean 
Greece,  both  as  an  archaeologist  and  a  psychologist. 
History,  too,  particularly  Italian  history,  he  knows  to  the 
bottom.  This  is  one  of  the  secrets  of  D'Annunzio's 
powerful  appeal  to  Italians,  an  appeal  almost  lost  to 
foreigners ;  he  is  able  to  strike  all  the  chords  of  national 
sentiment  because  he  knows  the  national  past. 

Life  to  D'Annunzio  the  artist  is  a  purely  hedonistic 
matter;  he  is  concerned  only  with  beauty.  To  him 
beauty  is  the  only  religion ;  the  creation  and  enjoyment  of 


100         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

it  the  only  aim  of  life.  His  characteristic  perversion  of 
the  philosophy  of  Nietzsche  asserts  that  the  aim  of  the 
life-struggle  is  to  create,  not  the  perfect  man,  the  Super- 
man, but  the  perfect  work  of  art,  —  the  Super-work-of-art. 

His  military  service  in  1890  saved  him  from  going  to 
pieces  mentally  and  physically,  for  it  took  him  out  of  the 
indulgent,  corrupt  circle  in  which  he  had  been  living,  forced 
him  into  the  open  air,  and  did  something  toward  giving 
him  a  sound  physique  and  steady  nerves.  On  the  basis 
of  his  new-found  strength  he  set  to  work  again  to  write 
novels,  humanitarian  in  phraseology  and  intent.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  he  had  been  reading  Tolstoi  and 
Dostoievski,  and  their  great-souled  pity  had  gone  to  his 
head.  But  while  he  caught  the  lingo  and  the  external 
appeal  to  the  intellect,  he  failed  to  create  the  wonderful 
ensemble  of  these  great  psychologists.  He  has  not  the 
deep  and  hospitable  humanity  which  makes  the  Russian 
masters  one  with  their  fellow  beings;  on  the  contrary, 
D'Annunzio  is  the  quintessence  of  individualism,  a 
dweller,  like  Alfred  de  Vigny,  in  his  ivory  tower. 

Something  has  been  said  above  of  D'Annunzio's  admira- 
tion for  Nietzsche  and  of  the  German's  profound  influence 
upon  him.  The  paganism,  the  satiric  quality,  the  negation 
of  human  responsibility,  the  pseudo-intellectual  doctrines 
of  ThiLS  Spake  Zarathnstra,  The  Genealogy  of  Morals,  and 
The  Twilight  of  the  Idols,  but  above  all  the  individualistic 
irresponsibility  of  the  superman  were  calculated  in  the 
highest  degree  to  appeal  to  D'Annunzio.  They  were  the 
complete  and  triumphant  justification  of  his  own  in- 
stincts; they  satisfied  his  intense  egotism  and  at  the 
same  time  Justified  him  in  his  interpretation  of  the  life  of 
the  world.    After  he  came  to  know  Nietzsche,  all  hia 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  ,     101 

heroes  are  Supermen,  devoting  their  lives  to  the  fulfillment 
of  their  own  destinies  and  desires.  In  Vlnnocenie,  in 
Le  Vergini  della  Rocce,  in  II  Fuoco,  and  in  the  plays  — 
he  began  about  this  time  to  write  plays  —  the  Super-hero 
appears.  In  The  Dead  City  the  heroes  are  supermen  in  the 
field  of  art,  as  also  in  La  Gioconda;  in  Glory,  it  is  the 
superman  in  politics ;  in  The  Ship  and  More  Than  Love, 
the  hero  is  justified  in  fulfilling  his  destiny  regardless  of 
consequences.  These  heroes  strive  for  two  things;  to 
satisfy  their  fleshly  lusts  and  to  produce  the  perfect 
being  (as  in  The  Virgins  of  the  Rocks),  or  to  create  the 
perfect  work  of  art. 

D'Annunzio  opened  his  dramatic  career  with  the  publi- 
cation of  several  saynMes  which  must  have  been  intended 
as  closet  drama  rather  than  for  the  boards.  The  first 
three  are  one-act  "parabola"  upon  subjects  drawn  from  the 
New  Testament.  In  1897,  The  Parable  of  the  Foolish 
Virgins  and  the  Wise  Virgins  {La  parabola  delle  vergini 
fatue  e  delle  Vergini  prudente)  appeared  in  the  great 
periodical  La  Nuova  Antologia.  In  1898  The  Parable  of 
the  Rich  Man  and  Poor  Lazarus  {La  parabola  del'  worn  ricco 
e  dell  povero  Lazaro),  the  best  of  these  Biblical  plays,  and 
in  the  same  year  The  Parable  of  the  Prodigal  Son  {La 
parabola  del  figlio  prodigo),  both  came  out  in  the  Mattino 
di  Napoli.  D'Annunzio  was  in  no  sense  qualified  to  treat 
these  themes  with  the  simplicity,  the  austerity,  the  sin- 
cerity which  constitutes  them  in  the  Biblical  form  master- 
pieces of  narrative  and  triumphs  of  symbolism.  They 
became  in  his  hands  Byzantine,  decadent,  perverted; 
he  transfuses  them  with  a  sort  of  Correggio  atmosphere, 
sensuous,  half-concealing,  half-revealing  their  outlines 
and  their  meaning.    Many  years  later,  in  The  Martyrdom 


102         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

of  Saint  Sebastian,  he  treats  certain  aspects  of  Christian 
mythology  in  the  same  elusive  and  illusory  vein.  In 
The  Parable  of  the  Wise  and  Foolish  Virgins,  D'Annunzio 
inverts  the  moral,  defending  and  justifying  those  who  know 
how  to  enjoy  the  pleasures  in  hand  with  no  thought  for 
the  future;  the  same  perverted  application  is  made  in 
The  Parable  of  the  Rich  Man  and  Poor  Lazarus.  The  rich 
man,  from  Hell,  invites  Lazarus,  in  Heaven,  to  envy  him. 
"Look,"  he  cries,  "my  eyes  have  seen  all  these  things, 
my  ears  have  heard  them,  my  tongue  has  tasted  them, 
my  nostrils  have  scented  them,  my  hands  have  touched 
them,  all  my  flesh  has  joyed  in  them.  I  have  lived  my 
life  to  the  full.    Envy  me  !" 

More  characteristic,  however,  are  the  Dreams  of  the 
Seasons  (I  sogni  delle  Stagioni) ;  The  Dream  of  a  Spring 
Morning  {II  sogno  d'un  mattino  di  primavera)  (1897) 
and  The  Dream  of  an  Autumn  Sunset  (II  sogno  d'un 
tramonto  d'autunno)  (1898).  Here  we  have  pure 
D'Annunzio.  Here  are  the  magnificent  imagery,  the 
living  imagination,  the  adept  analysis  of  erotic  emotion, 
the  static  quality,  showing  itself  in  a  lack  of  true  dramatic 
action,  —  all  the  elements  which  characterize  his  dramas. 

The  intrigue  of  neither  of  the  two  Dreams  is  as  important 
as  its  psychological  analysis,  and  its  atmosphere  of  poetic 
unreality.  The  Dream  of  a  Spring  Morning  is,  briefly,  a 
story  of  the  madness  of  a  young  woman  whose  lover  has 
been  slain  in  her  arms ;  all  night  long  she  had  lain,  bathed 
in  his  blood,  straining  to  her  breast  his  frigid  corpse. 
In  the  morning  she  was  mad ;  her  sister  and  friends  attempt 
to  restore  her  reason  by  showing  her  the  dead  man's 
brother  who  resembles  him  closely.  But  their  efforts 
result  only  in  clouding  still   more  her   disturbed  mind. 


GABRIELE   d'ANNUNZIO  103 

With  all  the  resources  of  his  art,  D'Annunzio  enriches  this 
pathetic  theme.  Henri  Fouquier  calls  this  Dream  a  "  poem 
in  dialogue."  "I  prefer,"  he  writes,  "to  look  upon  the 
main  personage  as  an  abstraction,  as  a  symbol  rather  than 
a  being  of  flesh  and  blood."  This  view  prepares  one  to 
appreciate  the  fitness  and  beauty  of  the  lyric  passages 
which  constitute  the  main,  almost  the  only  excellence  of 
the  piece.  D'Annunzio  in  making  a  madwoman  who 
remains  mad  the  center  of  his  action,  precludes  psy- 
chological development ;  the  situation  remains  unchanged. 
Action,  too,  is  lacking ;  we  do  not  witness  the  discovery  of 
the  lovers,  or  the  assassination.  These  are  faults  so 
grave  that  even  in  the  hands  of  Eleanora  Duse  the  play 
could  not  hold  the  attention  of  an  audience.  As  a  poem 
it  has  wonderful  lyric  qualities,  but  even  these  do  not 
offset  the  unrelieved  monotony  of  the  key  in  which  it  is 
composed. 

The  Dream  of  an  Autumn  Sunset,  the  companion 
"  Dream ",  is  another  study  of  erotic  passion  in  the  same 
tone.  The  Dogaressa  of  Venice,  Gradeniga,  loves  with  a 
torment  of  desire  a  young  man,  for  whose  sake  she  has 
poisoned  her  husband  and  whom  she  hopes  to  hold  by 
the  lure  of  her  superb  maturity  and  her  experience  in 
amorous  matters.  He  falls  in  love  in  his  turn  with  the 
young  and  lovely  courtesan,  Pantea,  adored  by  all  the 
men  of  Venice,  whose  supreme  beauty  seems  to  be  the 
very  incarnation  of  the  desirable  and  desired.  The 
Dogaressa  is  torn  by  the  remembrance  of  the  pleasure  she 
has  lost ;  she  lusts  for  her  lover  with  unbearable  intensity. 
The  passages  in  which  she  celebrates  her  lost  lover's  beauty 
and  her  longing  are  of  marvelous  IjTical  beauty.  The 
Dogaressa  plots  Pantea's  death;    she  calls  in  the  most 


104  THE   CONTEMPORA.RY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

powerful  sorceresses;  she  makes  a  waxen  image  of  the 
woman  she  hates ;  she  utters  powerful  spells ;  and  at  the 
moment  of  Pantea's  greatest  triumph,  when  she  appears 
naked  on  the  prow  of  the  galley  Bucentaur  on  which  she 
is  journeying  to  delight  the  eyes  of  all  Venice,  the  ship 
catches  fire.  But  the  Dogaressa's  vengeance  is  more  com- 
plete than  she  had  planned,  for  it  is  not  only  the  courtesan 
who  perishes  but  also  the  youth  she  loves.  Powerless 
to  save  him  she  witnesses  from  her  balcony  his  death. 

The  Dream  of  an  Autumn  Sunset  is  open  to  the  same 
criticism  as  its  predecessor,  —  lack  of  dramatic  con- 
struction, and  a  static  situation.  The  youth  and  the 
beautiful  Pantea,  for  example,  never  appear,  the  whole 
action  being  carried  on  by  dialogue  between  the  Dogaressa 
and  her  servants.  The  events  all  take  place  off  stage,  and 
are  related  by  messengers;  and  while  this  gives  un- 
exampled opportunity  for  lyric  outbursts  and  gorgeous 
narrative,  it  sacrifices  dramatic  effect  as  the  modern  stage 
knows  it.  But  the  description  of  Pantea  appearing  naked 
on  the  prow  of  the  ship,  the  lamentation  of  the  Dogaressa 
on  the  death  of  her  lover,  and  several  other  passages  are 
exquisitely  done. 

The  Dead  City  {La  citta  morta)  (1899)  is  D'Annunzio's 
first  long  play  and  in  some  respects  his  best.  He  was  im- 
passioned for  Greek  tragedy.  In  The  Dead  City  he  pro- 
posed to  revive  the  mode  of  the  Greek  drama,  and  to  re- 
state in  modern  idiom  its  message.  More  than  once 
D'Annunzio  has  repeated  this  experiment,  in  Fedra  and 
in  La  Chevrefeuille,  but  The  Dead  City  comes  nearest  to 
fulfilling  his  ideal.  The  play  is  a  study  in  morbid  and 
criminal  neurosis.  It  is  overshadowed  by  a  line  from  the 
Antigone,  "  Eros,  unconquered  in  battle." 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  105 

The  scene  of  the  action  is  the  ruined  Greek  city  of 
Mycenae,  whither  Leonardo  has  come  on  an  archaeological 
expedition.  The  atmosphere  of  the  place,  dry,  parched, 
dusty,  sun-baked,  has  penetrated  to  the  very  souls  of 
these  people.  They  are  overwhelmed  with  a  feeling  of 
inevitableness ;  they  really  have  no  hand  in  their  own 
destinies  but  are  the  tools  of  some  higher  maleficent  power. 
In  the  course  of  his  explorations  Leonardo  opens  up  a  tomb 
more  imposing  than  the  rest,  and  finds  himself  suddenly 
in  the  presence  of  the  corpses  of  the  members  of  the  house 
of  Atreus  just  as  they  had  been  laid  to  rest  after  the  famous 
banquet  where  all  perished.  There  they  all  are  clad  in  gold 
with  gold  masks  upon  their  faces  —  Agamemnon,  Clytem- 
nestra,  Cassandra,  and  the  rest.  From  the  dust  of  the 
old  heroes  is  exhaled  a  moral  miasma,  and  the  old  im- 
memorial sin  and  sorrow  wake  and  live  again  in  the  breasts 
of  new  victims.  Leonardo  conceives  a  criminal  passion 
for  his  own  sister,  struggles  against  it,  but  feels  his  will 
and  strength  borne  down  by  inexorable  Fate. 

The  blind  Anna,  wife  of  Alessandro,  is  a  character 
straight  out  of  Maeterlinck.  She  is  a  blood-sister  to 
M^lisande  and  Selysette.  Her  blindness  has  but  quickened 
her  spiritual  sight,  so  that  she  alone  understands  the  true 
state  of  things,  —  that  Leonardo  and  her  husband  both 
love  the  girl,  Bianca  Maria.  She  plans  to  do  away  with 
herself  to  leave  Alessandro  free;  but  Leonardo,  spurred 
on  by  uncontrollable  impulse,  lusting  for  his  sister,  leads 
her  to  a  near-by  fountain  and  when  she,  suspecting  noth- 
ing, leans  over  to  drink,  drowns  her,  —  "  to  keep  her  pure 
from  my  own  lust",  as  he  tells  Alessandro.  The  two 
men  are  mourning  for  her  when  Anna  finds  her  way  to 
them;    groping  she  touches  the  stooping  men  and  feels 


106         THE  CONTEMPORA.RY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

the  cold  corpse  of  the  dead  woman  and  at  this  moment, 
tragic  above  all,  by  an  ironical  stroke  of  Fate,  perhaps 
rather  in  the  interest  of  the  symbolistic  meaning  of  the 
play,  her  sight  is  restored  to  her.  "  I  see !  I  see ! "  she 
cries. 

The  language  of  The  Dead  City  is  as  superlatively 
masterly,  the  intrigue  as  static,  the  situations  as  rare  as 
in  earlier  plays.  Passages  such  as  Leonardo's  description 
of  finding  the  tomb  can  scarcely  be  surpassed  in  all 
modern  poetry  for  sheer  beauty.  Of  course  as  dramatic 
dialogue  this  rich  and  eloquent  lyric  material  is  abnormal. 
As  a  matter  of  fact  the  play  breaks  down  at  several 
points  because  of  excessive  virtuosity. 

The  persons  are  not  convincing  as  characters ;  they  are 
rather  mannequins  in  which  the  hand  of  the  manipulator 
is  constantly  apparent,  or  better,  each  is  an  embodiment 
of  some  aspect  or  emotion  of  their  creator,  Gabriele 
D'Annunzio;  they  all  tremble  on  the  verge  of  madness, 
like  the  persons  in  some  Maeterlinckian  puppet  show  — 
La  Mori  de  Tintagiles  or  Pelleas  et  Melisande.  Indeed 
both  the  psychology  and  the  technic  of  this  play  indicate 
either  D'Annunzio's  kinship  or  his  indebtedness  to 
Maeterlinck  —  the  broken  phrases,  the  half-uttered  sen- 
tences, the  long  significant  silences,  the  atmosphere  of 
tense  fatality,  the  apprehension  of  "something  evermore 
about  to  be",  the  terror  of  the  invisible  and  unknowable  — 
these  are  all  in  his  cabinet  of  effects. 

As  drama  The  Dead  City  has  this  unforgivable  fault, 
lack  of  action.  The  emotional  effect  is  not  inherent  in 
the  play,  but  is  derived  from  each  person's  description 
of  his  feelings,  from  the  externals,  from  D'Annunzio's 
description,  his  figures  of  speech,  his  images.    Maria, 


GABRIELE  d'aNNUNZIO  107 

Leonardo  and  Alessandro  are  not  vital  and  living  beings ; 
what  moves  us  is  not  their  struggle  and  suffering  —  but 
D'Annunzio's  description  of  it.  And  it  is  unalterably  true 
that  no  superweight  of  meaning,  no  deep-buried  treasure 
of  symbolism  can  justify  lack  of  action  or  unreality  of 
characterization  in  a  piece  that  professes  to  be  a 
drama. 

La  Gioconda  (1898)  poses  the  problem  of  the  relation 
between  the  artist  and  society.  Is  he  to  be  bound  by  the 
trammels  of  conventional  morality,  to  submit  himself  to 
the  laws  which  govern  the  rest  of  humanity,  or  is  he  to 
create  a  world  for  himself?  D'Annunzio,  of  course, 
would  answer  this  question  in  only  one  way :  the  artist  is 
the  superman  in  his  field,  the  being  to  whom  any  form 
of  behavior  is  permitted  in  his  struggle  to  bring  forth  the 
perfect  work  of  art.  Little  as  such  a  subject  might  seem 
calculated  to  make  an  appeal  to  the  general  public, 
D'Annunzio,  sustained  by  the  sincerity  of  his  conviction 
(it  is  almost  the  only  conviction  he  has),  wrote  a  really 
touching  drama.  Though  the  characters,  the  wife  and 
the  model  who  strive  for  possession  of  the  artist,  the  artist 
himself,  and  the  others  are  probably  in  the  ultimate 
analysis  allegorical  or  at  least  symbolistic  figures,  neverthe- 
less in  reading  or  witnessing  the  play,  this  aspect  is  sub- 
ordinated to  the  human  interest,  and  one  thinks  of  them 
rather  as  living  beings  than  as  abstractions. 

Lucio  Settala,  a  sculptor,  married  to  the  lovely  and 
intelligent  Silvia,  is  nevertheless  in  love  with  his  model. 
La  Gioconda,  whom  he  calls  the  most  beautiful  living 
creature.  In  desperation  he  has  attempted  to  make  way 
with  himself,  but  rescued  in  time  has  been  nursed  back 
to  health  and  strength  by  his  neglected  wife.    In  the 


108         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

long  months  of  convalescence  under  her  tender  care,  he 
has  forgotten  the  hectic  fury  of  his  passion  for  the  other 
woman,  his  rage  of  creation,  and  is  content  to  live  in  calm 
and  peace,  remembering  his  past  with  little  more  than 
mild  regret.  But  a  letter  from  La  Gioconda  suflBces  to 
reawaken  in  him  all  the  thing  he  had  sought  to  forget. 
She,  after  all,  is  his  inspiration,  she  is  the  spur  which 
goads  him  to  create,  her  living  breathing  presence  is  to 
him  the  incarnation  of  beauty,  of  Art.  While  he  owes 
his  existence  to  the  wife  who  has  nursed  him  back  to  life, 
to  the  model  he  owes  all  his  inspiration.  As  a  symbol  of 
this,  she  has  been  tending  his  unfinished  masterpiece,  a 
Sphinx,  keeping  it  wrapped  in  wet  cloths,  ready  for  his 
hand.  She  has  watched  and  guarded  the  work  of  his 
soul,  his  wife  only  his  sick  body.  He  loves  his  wife,  she 
is  a  prop,  a  refuge,  but  she  can  never  give  him  the  dynamic 
electric  impulse  he  gets  from  the  model. 

In  the  letter  La  Gioconda  has  said  she  would  meet  him 
at  a  certain  hour  at  his  studio.  Silvia,  knowing  full  well 
her  husband  will  go,  resolves  to  fight  her  own  battle  and 
hurries  off  to  meet  the  woman  before  he  can  see  her. 
Here  is  the  crucial  scene  of  the  play,  where  the  two  women 
symbolizing  the  one  the  human  duties  and  relationships  of 
the  artist,  the  other  his  creative  impulse,  lock  in  a  fierce 
struggle  for  possession  of  him. 

Silvia  urges  her  right  as  wife  of  the  man  and  mother  of 
his  children,  but  La  Gioconda  replies,  "Household 
affections  have  no  place  here;  domestic  virtues  have  no 
rights  of  sanctuary.  Here  is  a  place  outside  laws  and 
beyond  common  rights.  Here  a  sculptor  makes  his 
statues.  Here  he  is  alone  with  the  instruments  of  his 
art.     Well,  I  am  only  one  of  the  instruments  of  his  art. 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  109 

Nature  has  sent  me  to  him  to  carry  a  message  and  to  serve 
him.  I  obey  !"  Here  is  voiced  the  central  thought  of 
the  drama.  La  Gioconda  refuses  to  leave  the  studio  until 
she  is  dismissed  by  Lucio  himself.  Then  Silvia  in  despera- 
tion resorts  to  a  lie,  she  says  that  she  has  been  sent  by 
her  husband  to  deliver  her  message.  The  model  is  in- 
furiated. "He  is  dead  now,"  she  cries,  "dead  to  real 
life,  and  creation,  dragged  down  by  a  cloying  affection." 
She  cannot  bear  to  leave  anything  of  herself  with  him. 
She  darts  behind  the  curtain  which  veils  the  unfinished 
statue.  "I'll  destroy  it,  I'll  smash  it  !"  In  vain  Silvia 
cries  to  her,  "No  !  It  is  not  true,  I  was  lying."  It  is  too 
late ;  Silvia  too  runs  behind  the  curtain.  There  is  a 
crash  and  a  scream.  La  Gioconda  runs  quickly  across  the 
stage  and  out,  as  Silvia  staggers  from  behind  the  curtain 
her  hands  wrapped  in  bloody  cloths.  Her  hands,  her 
beautiful  hands  have  been  crushed  by  the  falling  statue. 
At  this  moment  Lucio  appears  just  in  time  to  receive 
his  wife,  who  falls  fainting  into  his  arms  sobbing,  "It 
is  safe,  it  is  safe."  It  is  a  powerful  scene,  arousing  the 
old  primitive  throb  of  terror  and  pity. 

Most  dramatists  would  have  been  content  with  this,  but 
D'Annunzio  has  not  yet  sufficiently  enforced  his  point,  and 
he  gives  another  act.  Silvia  is  shown,  alone  with  her 
little  daughter,  abandoned  by  her  artist  husband.  Her 
sacrifice  has  won  nothing  for  her ;  Lucio  has  gone  off  with 
the  model.  A  strange  beggar-maid  is  questioning  Silvia 
—  "  Where  are  your  beautiful  hands  ?  You  gave  them 
away?  To  whom."  "To  my  love!"  "What  a  cruel 
love ! "  and  the  girl  sings  the  ballad  of  the  Seven  Sisters,  a 
perfect  jewel  of  a  lyric.  Silvia's  little  daughter  comes 
with  flowers  she  has  picked,  offering  them  to  her  mother. 


110         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

She  wonders  why  her  mother  will  not  take  them.  On  this 
note  of  poignant  but  poetic  sadness  the  play  closes. 

While  the  last  act  of  La  Gioconda  as  a  bit  of  dramatic 
technic  is  an  anticlimax,  it  is  necessary  in  establishing 
this  thesis.  It  must  be  shown  that  Silvia's  supreme 
sacrifice  is  not  only  futile  so  far  as  the  artist  and  his 
art  are  concerned,  but  also  vain  as  concerns  her  own 
happiness.  The  artist,  the  super-soul,  must  seek  the 
sphere  in  which  his  inspiration  can  live ;  the  obligations 
of  a  domestic  affection,  however  pure  and  noble,  stifle 
and  silence  him. 

Silvia  is  the  dominating  figure  among  the  persons  of 
the  play.  Indeed,  as  if  from  deliberate  design  the  other 
persons  are  but  sketched.  By  a  pretty  and  significant 
stroke  La  Gioconda  remains  veiled  throughout  the  play 
and  we  can  judge  of  her  marvelous  beauty  only  by  its 
effect  upon  Lucio.  The  device  serves  to  throw  into  com- 
pleter relief  the  noble,  human,  womanly  character  of 
Silvia.  She  is  a  keen-witted,  adequate  person,  a  strong 
and  beautiful  soul.  When  played  by  Duse  (the  play  is 
dedicated  to  Eleonora  Duse,  dalle  belle  mani)  this  character 
is  so  limpidly  simple,  so  free  from  sentimentality,  so 
completely  swayed  by  pure  and  generous  impulses,  so 
noble  in  its  desolation,  that  one  feels  the  play  would 
better  be  called  The  Tragedy  of  Silvia  Settala. 

Glory  (La  Gloria)  (1899)  met  with  a  hostile  reception 
which,  it  must  be  confessed,  it  deserved.  Maurice  Muret 
calls  it  "a  bastard  work,  tormented,  bizarre,  whose 
scattered  beauties  could  not  insure  its  success."  Bastard 
it  is  in  the  sense  of  combining  allegory  and  reality  in  a 
hopeless  confusion ;  bastard  also  in  its  artificial  and  senti- 
mental attempt  to  handle  the  problems  and  discussions 


GABRIELE   d'ANNUNZIO  111 

of  modern  life  in  terms  of  the  antique.  These  things, 
and  perhaps  also  the  ferocious  indelicacy  of  the  play  finally 
getting  beneath  the  Italian  skin,  so  displeased  the  audience 
that  they  hissed  it  from  the  stage,  —  which  angered  the 
poet  to  the  point  of  dedicating  the  printed  version  to 
"the  dogs  who  hissed  it." 

The  first  intention  of  the  play  was  to  present  the  super- 
man in  politics,  but  the  dramatist  seems  to  have  been 
diverted  from  this  original  purpose  as  the  play  progressed 
to  a  study  of  the  woman,  half  human,  half  symbolistic, 
who  destroys  lover  after  lover,  always  attaching  herself 
to  the  man  in  power,  to  whom  the  "Glory"  of  the  moment 
adheres.  Come  to  analyze  it,  it  is  due  to  the  baffling 
duality  of  this  woman,  Elena  Comnena,  who  is  neither 
of  the  flesh  nor  of  the  spirit,  who  is  all-powerful  in  some 
directions  and  vaguer  than  a  wreath  of  mist  in  others,  — 
it  is  due  to  this  confusion  that  Glory  misses  fire.  To  her 
lover  Ruggero  Flamma  she  seems  to  impersonate  Glory  — 
its  beauty,  its  crimes,  its  bloodiness  —  but  also  its  rewards 
and  compensations.  To  the  lover  whom  she  has  destroyed 
in  order  to  attach  herself  to  Ruggero,  she  is  only  the  vam- 
pire incarnate,  the  antique  Gorgon,  the  Rose  of  Hell,  the 
unnamable  Shame.  D'Annunzio  is  fond  of  this  lurid 
female,  introducing  her  in  all  her  essential  lineaments  in 
The  Ship,  in  The  Light  under  the  Bushel,  in  Fedra,  and  as 
a  less  detailed  figure  in  other  plays.  In  none  of  her  other 
appearances,  however,  does  she  exhibit  that  confusion 
between  actuality  and  symbol  that  constitutes  the  central 
weakness  of  Glory. 

The  play  has  additional  weakness ;  it  is  marred  by  in- 
excusable verbosity,  and  like  all  D'Annunzio's  plays  it 
completely  lacks  dramatic  action;   it  displays,  however. 


112         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

the  admirable  qualities  of  the  other  plays,  qualities 
literary  rather  than  distinctly  dramatic;  and  nothing 
short  of  astounding  is  the  evocation  of  the  atmosphere  of 
Rome,  —  the  city  of  blood  and  fire,  Papal  Rome. 

One  great  interest  that  Glory  holds  for  the  student  of 
D'Annunzio  is  its  rather  succinct  reflection  of  his  philos- 
ophy. Here  is  revealed  his  worship  of  power,  his  faith 
in  Machtpolitik ;  the  craving  for  infinite  excitement 
which  he  interprets  in  his  own  manner  as  the  worship  of 
masculine  virility ;  the  apotheosis  of  the  hero,  of  courage, 
of  carnage.  It  reflects  his  belief  in  the  purifying  and 
revivifying  properties  of  shed  blood,  —  no  man  and  no 
nation,  it  seems  to  say,  can  be  truly  itself  until  he  or  it  has 
seen  carnage.  The  ideal  man  appears  as  Nietzsche's 
"big  beast"  perhaps  not  "blond",  with  no  morality  but 
his  strength,  knowing  no  sanctions  but  those  of  the  sword, 
recognizing  none  of  the  debilitating  ideas  of  civilization, 
having  no  authority  but  his  own  impulses.  Life  is  the 
progress  of  this  hero  through  the  gratification  of  his 
desires  toward  the  fulfillment  of  his  destiny.  In  Glory 
we  may  see  the  germs  of  that  fire  and  that  eloquence  by 
which  D'Annunzio  did  so  much  to  precipitate  Italy  into 
the  world  war. 

Francesca  da  Rimini  (1901)  has  many  of  the  qualities 
of  a  great  play.  It  is  declared  by  Eduardo  Boutet,  an 
authoritative  Italian  critic,  to  be  "the  first  real,  albeit 
not  perfect,  tragedy  ever  given  to  the  Italian  stage." 
Naturally  one  must  allow  something  for  a  personal 
enthusiasm  in  this  statement,  and  something  for  the  lack 
of  perspective  of  a  contemporary  judgment,  but  un- 
doubtedly Francesca  da  Rimini  has  tremendous  power  as 
a  human  tragedy  and  great  and  abiding  beauties  as  a  work 


GABRIELE   d'aNNTJNZIO  113 

of  art.  He  is  here  handling  a  subject  and  setting  par- 
ticularly well  suited  to  his  powers  —  medieval  Italy,  its 
atmosphere  and  emotion,  and  the  amorous  passion.  As 
a  reconstruction  of  an  epoch  Francesca  da  Rimini  is  a 
masterpiece. 

The  story  of  Paolo  and  Francesca  suggested  in  an  im- 
mortal passage  in  Dante,  the  5th  canto  of  the  Inferno, 
is  retold  in  its  entirety  by  Boccaccio  in  his  commen- 
tary on  the  Divina  Commedia.  D'Annunzio  reproduces 
almost  exactly  this  version  with  the  addition  of  certain 
minor  characters  and  one  major  one,  the  major  addition 
being  Gianciotto's  younger  brother,  Malatestino,  a 
ferocious,  cunning,  bloodthirsty  boy,  the  very  spirit  of 
baleful  revenge.  Francesca  is  trapped  into  marrying 
the  elderly  and  lame  Gianciotto  by  being  led  to  believe 
that  it  is  his  brother  Paolo,  young  and  beautiful,  whom  she 
is  to  wed.  Too  late  to  withdraw  or  to  protest  she  dis- 
covers her  mistake.  When  she  is  married  to  Gianciotto 
she  and  Paolo  have  already  fallen  in  love  with  each  other. 
They  reveal  their  love  in  a  famous  scene  for  which  the 
play  might  have  been  written,  so  loaded  is  it  with  beauty 
and  meaning  —  centering  about  the  episode  described  by 
Francesca  in  the  Inferno  —  the  episode  of  the  lovers 
reading  "per  diletto  di  Lancelotto,  Come  amor  lo  stringe." 
In  the  play  the  lovers  are  betrayed  by  the  ferocious  young 
Malatestino  who  had  himself  courted  Francesca  in  vain, 
and  being  surprised  together  are  slain  by  the  grieved  and 
insulted  husband. 

The  beauty  of  Francesca  da  Rimini  is  multiform  and 
has  many  sources  —  the  verse,  musical  and  rich  beyond 
praise ;  the  imaginative  settings,  each  the  creation  of  an 
artist;    the  atmosphere,  authentic,  vibrant,  surcharged 


114         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

with  passion ;  the  picturesque  and  revelatory  accessories, 
such  as  Francesca's  playing  with  the  "Greek  fire"  on  the 
battlements,  or  Malatestino's  dragging  about  in  a  sack 
the  head  of  the  prisoner  he  had  decapitated. 

But  D'Annunzio  has  missed  completely,  or  has  de- 
liberately forgone  the  austere  grandeur  of  Dante's  Paolo 
and  Francesca,  the  "worried  souls."  De  Sanctis  in 
discussing  the  passage  in  the  Inferno  speaks  of  the  con- 
sciousness of  sin  which  penetrates  the  whole  episode,  the 
delicacy,  the  sweetness,  the  modesty,  the  reticence,  which 
fill  the  words  of  the  guilty  and  doomed  Francesca,  reveal- 
ing at  the  same  time  the  force  of  that  passion  which  leaves 
her  not  and  will  never  leave.  D'Annunzio  has  written 
instead  (the  words  are  his  own)  "a  poem  of  blood  and 
lust."  Francesca  is  not  the  unfortunate  victim  of  a  fateful 
accident,  but  a  passionate  being  who  glories  in  her  love, 
and  who  justifies  her  surrender  to  a  guilty  love  by  the 
deception  practiced  upon  her.  None  of  these  people 
think  or  reason ;  they  stand  for  human  nature  reduced  to 
its  lowest  terms  of  impulse  and  appetite ;  but  this  process 
does  not  in  this  play,  as  it  does  in  The  Dead  City,  destroy 
the  effect  of  life.  The  men  and  women  of  the  far-off 
barbarous  epoch  of  Francesca  da  Rimini  were  no  dreamers, 
or  aesthetic  degenerates  or  splitters  of  emotional  hairs. 
They  were  the  tools  and  agents  of  their  instincts  and  pas- 
sions, and  D'Annunzio  has  managed  to  make  Paolo, 
Francesca,  Gianciotto  and  Malatestino  convincing. 

The  Daughter  of  Jorio  {La  Figlia  di  Jorio)  is  of  1904. 
It  is  intended  as  the  first  of  a  great  trilogy  on  the  poet's 
native  Abruzzi,  in  which  he  designs  to  interpret  to  the 
world  the  inner  soul  of  his  fatherland,  in  all  its  beauty 
and  savagery,  its  ignorance,  superstition  and  strength. 


GABRIELE    d'aNNUNZIO  115 

He  has  attained  his  end  in  The  Daughter  of  Jorio  with  a 
great  power  and  skill.  Again,  as  in  The  Dead  City,  he 
has  followed  the  Greek  form,  the  bridal  party  and  the 
reapers  in  the  first  act,  the  mob  gathered  to  witness  the 
execution  in  the  fifth  serving  as  chorus.  A  young  shep- 
herd, Aligi,  on  his  betrothal  day,  offers  protection  to 
Mila,  the  daughter  of  Jorio,  a  notorious  magician,  when 
she  is  pursued  by  a  party  of  reapers  and  takes  refuge  in 
his  house.  He  is  about  to  cast  her  out  when  he  beholds  a 
vision  of  an  angel  standing  behind  her.  They  fall  in 
love  and  flee  together  to  the  mountains.  His  father 
comes  to  get  him  and  to  possess  himself  of  the  girl,  and  in 
protecting  her  the  son  slays  his  parent.  Tried  for  patricide 
he  is  condemned  to  be  cast  bound  into  the  river  in  a  sack 
with  a  ferocious  mastiff.  But  Mila  appears  and  takes 
the  guilt  upon  herself :  she  has  bewitched  him,  she  says. 
She  consummates  her  sacrifice  in  the  flames,  crying 
"Oh,  the  fire  is  beautiful,  the  fire  is  beautiful." 

The  Daughter  of  Jorio  is  one  of  the  most  actable  and 
acceptable  of  D'Annunzio's  plays;  the  reality  of  the 
animalism  and  brutality  surrounding  the  beautiful  and 
pure  heroine  is  a  bit  of  effective  contrast  calculated  to 
appeal  strongly  to  the  somewhat  jaded  palates  of  the 
modern  Italian  theatre-goers.  Then,  too,  as  in  Francesca 
da  Rimini,  the  subject-matter  has  a  special  appeal  for 
Italian  audiences ;  the  characters  are  of  the  violent  primi- 
tive type  that  the  poet  knew  how  to  create  and  the  verse 
is  superb,  as  always.  The  weakness  and  formlessness  in 
dramatic  structiu-e  are  but  characteristic. 

The  Light  under  the  Bushel  {La  Fiaccola  sotto  il  moggio) 
(1905),  another  of  the  Abruzzese  trilogy,  is  far  inferior 
to  its  predecessor,  and  lacking  in  finish.    The  tale  of  the 


116         THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

servant  who  by  mere  physical  attraction  gains  an  ascend- 
ancy over  her  master,  murders  his  wife,  tries  to  ensnare 
his  brother,  poisons  his  son,  brings  about  the  suicide  of  his 
daughter  in  a  most  horrible  manner  and  is  finally  murdered 
by  the  disdeluded  master  —  the  story  is  too,  too  lurid ! 
The  primitive  force  of  The  Daughter  of  Jorio  here  de- 
generates into  violence ;  the  exaggerated  passions  become 
grotesque.  Melodrama,  always  lurking  at  the  door  of 
the  "  powerful "  poet,  takes  the  place  of  drama.  The  very 
beauty  of  the  language  is  swallowed  up  in  the  impossible 
horror  of  the  plot.  Augizia  di  Tura,  the  servant,  is 
his  most  complete  incarnation  of  the  eternal  feminine  as 
D'Annunzio  understands  it;  she  is  the  Flesh,  the  Enemy, 
the  Sovereign  Mistress.  She  is  confronted  in  the  play 
by  the  daughter  of  the  woman  she  has  murdered,  Monica 
di  Sangro,  the  incarnation  in  her  turn  of  implacable  and 
pitiless  vengeance.  The  drama  is  the  struggle  of  these  two 
women. 

D'Annunzio  now  again  turned  his  attention  to  a  modem 
theme  and  the  Superman  in  More  than  Love  {PiU  che 
Vamore)  (1907).  As  in  La  Gioconda  in  the  field  of  art,  so 
here  in  the  world  of  action  D'Annunzio  justifies  the  strong 
man  in  any  deed  that  fulfills  his  destiny.  D'Annunzio 
weakens  his  play  and  nullifies  his  doctrine  to  the  point  of 
inanity,  however,  by  allowing  his  hero  to  suffer  a  penalty 
for  his  misdeeds  as  any  ordinary  mortal  might.  Corrado 
Brando  is  an  African  explorer  who,  refused  funds  for  his 
researches  by  the  government,  obtains  them  by  murdering 
an  ignoble  gambler  and  stealing  his  purse.  Unfortunately 
his  precautions  have  not  been  properly  taken;  he  is 
betrayed  by  a  detail,  and  with  the  police  on  his  trail,  puts 
^  bullet  into  himself  rather  than  suffer  the  ignominy  of  a 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  117 

vulgar  punishment.  But  his  mission  does  not  die  with 
him.  He  leaves  a  child  yet  to  be  born.  The  sister  of  his 
best  friend  whom  he  has  seduced  and  who  loves  him  the 
more  for  this,  announces  to  him  this  future  and  glorious 
event  as  he  lies  dying. 

To  this  curious  complex  of  realism  and  melodrama 
D'Annunzio  has  dedicated  language  of  the  most  exquisite 
beauty  and  most  extraordinary  abundance.  For  two 
hundred  pages,  his  characters  talk  in  glittering  figures  and 
rare  phrases.  The  engineer,  the  surgeon,  the  explorer  pour 
out  sentences  worthy  of  the  most  erudite  and  gifted  poet, 
• —  a  piece  of  pedantry  on  the  part  of  the  author  which 
goes  to  confirm  the  judgment  that  he  has  no  sense  of  the 
differentiation  of  characters,  the  absolutely  essential 
dramatic  gift.  As  one  reads,  he  is  carried  along  on  a 
flood-tide  of  words,  but  behind  the  footlights  More  than 
Love  withers  into  the  driest  of  bones.  The  play  could 
never  have  been  written  by  a  man  with  a  sense  of  humor, 
its  absurdities  are  really  too  patent.  Like  Ghry,  More 
than  Love  was  a  flat  failure  in  the  theater. 

More  success  attended  the  production  of  The  Ship 
{La  Nave)  (1908)  because  it  was  much  better  suited  to 
its  author's  genius,  which  is  mos  genuinely  at  home  in 
the  remote.  As  in  Francesca  da  Rimini  the  action  is  set 
in  the  Middle  Ages ;  its  success  was  even  more  immediate 
and  more  pronounced  because,  as  it  happens,  the  play 
strikes  a  patriotic  note  dealing  with  the  Italian  aspiration 
to  make  the  Adriatic  an  Italian  lake ;  and  because  it  is 
a  much  better  piece  of  drama.  The  "  Ubermensch  "  again 
walks  the  boards  in  the  person  of  Marco  Gratico,  but  the 
real  center  of  the  play  is  the  heroine,  the  courtesan  Basiliola, 
the  embodiment  of  powerful  tempting  pleasure.     She  is 


118         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

blood-sister  to  Elena  Comnena,  Augizia  di  Tura,  and 
Fedra. 

The  Ship  is  not  an  organic  play,  but  is  made  up  of  "a 
Prologue  and  three  episodes",  with  little  connection 
between  the  acts.  The  scene  is  Byzantine  Venice  at  the 
end  of  the  Middle  Ages  when  the  Queen  of  the  Adriatic 
was  at  the  height  of  her  power.  One  of  D'Annunzio's 
critics  compares  the  drama  to  a  spectacle  in  the  Roman 
Coliseum,  an  apt  comparison,  for  The  Ship  partakes  of 
the  bloody,  sensual,  gorgeous,  religious,  pagan  character 
of  those  sinister  circenses. 

The  Prologue  shows  five  blind  men,  —  Orso  Faledra 
and  his  four  sons  who  have  been  tortured  by  the  Doge 
Marco  Gratico.  In  the  background  is  building  a  great 
Ship,  Tot2is  Mundus,  symbol  of  the  new-born  nation. 
The  Sister  of  the  Faledras,  Basiliola,  reaches  Venice 
from  the  Orient,  where  she  had  become  an  adept  in 
corruption.  She  resolves  to  wreak  terrible  vengeance  on 
Marco  Gratico ;  she  inflames  him  and  all  Venice  by  offer- 
ing herself  to  the  victor  in  the  race  for  political  power  in 
the  city ;  she  sows  dissension  between  him  and  his  brother 
—  the  bishop  of  Venice.  The  first  episode  takes  place 
beside  a  terrible  pit  where  prisoners  are  thrown  to  die. 
Basiliola  passes  by.  A  young  man  begs  her  to  kill  him 
to  put  him  out  of  his  misery.  She  will  not  until  by  insults 
he  angers  her.  Then  she  seizes  a  bow  from  the  guard 
and  slays  him  with  an  arrow.  Then  all  the  prisoners, 
possessed  by  blood-lust,  call  upon  her  to  shoot  them,  and 
one  at  a  time  she  kills  them,  until  at  last  there  remains 
only  one  youth.  He  asks  a  moment's  respite  to  pile  up 
the  corpses  of  his  comrades,  so  she  may  take  a  better  aim. 
An  amorous  dialogue  is  carried  on  between  them,  and 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  119 

she  covers  with  kisses  the  head  of  the  arrow  which  pierces 
his  heart.  During  the  whole  scene  the  magnificent 
liturgical  songs  of  the  church,  chanted  by  men's  voices  in 
a  near-by  basUica,  drown  the  dying  cries  of  the  prisoners. 

In  the  second  episode  Basiliola  dances  a  licentious  dance 
"half  naked,  her  shoulders  inundated  with  her  tawny 
hair,  a  bare  sword  in  her  hand."  She  incites  the  Gratico 
brothers  to  a  fight  in  which  the  bishop  Sergio,  now 
become  her  lover,  is  slain,  and  she  remains  in  the  hands  of 
her  enemy,  the  Tribune,  her  former  lover. 

The  last  episode  caps  the  climax  of  beauty,  irreligion 
and  horror.  Marco  Gratico,  before  he  starts  on  a  voyage 
in  the  Talus  Mundus  to  expiate  his  fratricide,  decides  that 
Basiliola  shall  have  her  eyes  burned  out,  suffering  the 
same  torture  as  her  father  and  brothers.  But  by  her 
charms  she  so  influences  the  executioner  that  he  cannot 
perform  his  task.  Then  Marco  Gratico  decrees  that  she 
shall  be  nailed  naked  to  the  prow  of  the  great  ship  as  its 
figurehead.  In  desperation  at  this  BasUiola  rushes  to  an 
altar  where  fire  is  burning  and  casts  herself  into  the 
flames.  She  dies  as  the  great  Ship  glides  down  the  ways 
into  the  water,  the  cross  on  the  poop,  the  Virgin  at  the 
mast-head  amid  the  exalted  "Hallelujahs"  of  the  crowd. 

Any  analysis  of  The  Ship  does  it  injustice.  It  is  really 
not  a  play  but  a  grandiose  epic  in  dialogue  in  which 
choruses  of  neophytes,  of  worshippers,  of  prisoners,  hold 
converse  with  the  individuals;  where  a  whole  people  is 
the  protagonist  and  the  Adriatic  the  hero.  It  contains 
gorgeously  beautiful  lyrical  passages.  Scenes  like  that 
of  the  shooting  of  the  prisoners  and  the  amorous  dialogue, 
the  temptation  of  the  executioner,  are  particularly  fine. 
It  is  the  orchestration  in  words,  with  sumptuous  harmony 


120         THE   CONTEMPORA.RY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

of  rhythms  and  phrases,  that  made  the  success  of  The 
Ship. 

Fedra  (1909)  is  a  revamping  of  the  well-known  theme  of 
the  Hippolytos  of  Euripides,  also  worked  over  by  Racine. 
Phaedra,  thinking  her  husband  dead,  gives  free  rein  to 
her  passion  for  her  stepson,  who,  however,  does  not 
yield  to  her  importunity.  When  her  husband  returns, 
resentful  at  having  been  spurned  by  Hippolytos,  she 
accuses  him  falsely  of  making  advances  to  her.  D'Annun- 
zio's  Fedra  is  not  the  innocent  wife  of  Euripides  seduced 
by  her  own  weakness  and  the  machinations  of  her  nurse, 
nor  yet  the  grande  amoureiLse  of  Racine,  victim  of  the 
wrath  of  Venus.  She  is  again  the  personification  of  the 
eternal  harlot.  The  desire  kindled  in  her  by  the  youth 
and  beauty  of  Hippolytos  is  coarse  and  fleshly  and  she 
rejoices  in  her  lust.  Once  Hippolytos  is  dead  the  flame 
of  fury  dies  down  in  Fedra,  a  pure  and  pale  light  envelops 
her.  She  proclaims  the  innocence  of  the  youth,  but 
glories  in  her  love.  His  death  has  purified  and  cleansed 
her.  She  invokes  the  Huntress,  chaste  Artemis;  a 
moon  ray,  a  livid  arrow,  pierces  her  and  she  falls  upon  the 
corpse  of  the  youth,  smiling.  Much  of  Fedra  is  taken 
from  the  poet's  IjTical  outburst,  the  Laus  Vitae.  When  it 
was  played,  though  it  failed,  certain  passages  were  re- 
ceived with  favor. 

D'Annunzio  has  always  been  under  French  influence; 
the  evidence  as  to  his  borrowing  is  irrefutable.  Flaubert, 
De  Maupassant,  Baudelaire,  Barres,  Huysmans,  Maeter- 
linck, and  many  others  are  all  ground  in  his  mill  and  given 
out  again  as  bread  of  his  own  making.  IMaurice  Barres  is 
his  particular  friend  and  he  was  acquainted  with  Emile 
Verhaeren .    To  the  former  he  has  dedicated  his  Martyrdom 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  121 

of  Saint  Sebastian  (Le  Martyre  de  Saint  Sebastien)  (1911) 
written  with  Claude  Debussy.  It  is  a  product  of  his 
new  symboHstic  tendencies,  his  neo-Christianity,  and  a 
certain  erotico-mystic  tendency  already  visible  in  The 
Ship.  The  Martyrdom  of  Saint  Sebastian  is  called  "un 
mystere  compose  en  rythme  fran^ais,"  and  well  so  called, 
for  it  is  not  a  play  but  a  mystery,  in  the  manner  of  the 
medieval  French  mysteries,  and  is  written,  not  in  the 
conventional  rhymed  verse  of  French  tragedy  but  in 
unrhymed  lines  of  lengths  varying  to  suit  the  tempo  of 
the  scene.  It  is  a  dramatic  poem  in  vers  libre,  describing 
the  conversion  and  martyrdom  of  Sebastian,  the  beautiful 
archer,  the  friend  of  Augustus.  It  was  written  for  the 
Russian  dancer,  Ida  Rubenstein,  and  was  first  played  by 
her;  D'Annunzio  says  it  was  her  "sexless  grace"  which 
first  inspired  him  with  the  idea  of  Saint  Sebastian. 

Whoever  attempts  to  stage  the  Martyrdom  of  Saint 
Sebastian  does  it  a  great  wrong.  The  wonderful  scenes, 
the  magnificent  tableaux  which  enchant  the  reader's 
visual  imagination  become  under  the  borders  the  merest 
tinsel ;  the  sapphire  dome  is  a  blue  back-cloth,  the  whirling 
signs  of  the  zodiac,  discs  of  wood ;  the  dance  of  the  Saint 
in  imitation  of  the  Passion  a  grotesque  and  blasphemous 
mummery.  Those  who  praise  the  play  confine  themselves 
to  its  literary  qualities ;  those  who  find  fault  with  it  are 
mainly  discussing  its  dramatic  aspects.  Claude  Debussy 
has  provided  enchanting  music,  interpreting  to  a  nicety 
the  course  of  action  and  emotion. 

The  Pisan  Woman,  or  Perfumed  Death  (La  Pisanella  ou 
la  mort  parfumee)  (1913)  was  also  written  in  French  for 
Ida  Rubenstein.  D'Annunzio  returns  to  his  old  stamping- 
ground,  the  Renaissance,  and  to  the  tragedy  of  passion 


122         THE   CONTEMPORA.RY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

and  blood  (he  calls  it  "comedy").  In  Paris  La  Pisanella 
met  with  the  chilling  reception  it  so  richly  merited.  In 
three  acts  and  a  prologue  it  follows  the  career  of  another 
magnificent  sinner,  the  Woman  of  Pisa.  She  is  brought 
as  a  slave  from  the  Orient  and  taken  by  the  Prince  of 
Cyprus  as  his  destined  bride,  being  placed  by  him  in  a 
convent  for  safe-keeping.  He  and  his  father,  the  king, 
quarrel  over  her  and  the  son  is  killed.  In  the  last  act  the 
Queen,  jealous  of  her  influence  over  the  King,  has  her 
put  to  death  by  being  smothered  in  roses  to  the  sound  of 
exquisite  music. 

La  Pisanella  is  as  hectic  as  The  Ship  —  a  spectacle  of 
blood  lust  and  lasciviousness,  at  one  and  the  same  time 
terrifying  and  voluptuous.  Its  very  excesses,  however, 
turn  it  into  grotesque.  It  was  no  doubt  this  mad  pro- 
fusion of  material  and  emotion  that  rendered  it  unaccept- 
able in  France.  Its  French  is  not  equal  to  that  of  Saint 
Sebastian;  it  has  more  of  a  foreign  flavor  and  the 
verse  has  become  still  more  free  and  less  studiedly 
beautiful. 

Parisina  {Tragedia  lirica)  (1913)  has  been  set  to  music 
by  Mascagni.  It  is  the  second  member  of  the  trilogy 
of  the  Malatesti  of  which  Francesca  da  Rimini  was  the 
first.  The  religious  element,  or  rather  the  element  of 
religiosity  strong  in  The  Ship,  more  so  in  Saint  Sebastian, 
becomes  here  even  more  pervading.  The  play  is  built 
around  a  pilgrimage  to  Loreto  and  is  full  of  prayers  and 
liturgical  chants.  D'Annunzio  has  ever  been  an  admirer 
of  the  dramatic  side  of  Roman  Catholic  ritual  and  has 
given  it  a  large  place  in  his  plays  and  novels,  many  of 
which  are  permeated  and  as  it  were  decorated  with  Catholic 
beliefs.    Indeed  D'Annunzio  as  a  philosopher  is  an  un- 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  123 

believer  but  as  an  artist  always  thinks  in  terms  of  the 
Catholic  faith. 

Parisina  dei  Malatesti,  married  against  her  will  to 
Nicholas  II  of  Ferrara,  at  first  hates  her  stepson,  Ugo, 
but  later  comes  to  love  him.  Parisina  makes  a  pilgrimage 
to  Loreto  with  Ugo  as  an  escort.  When  the  sanctuary  is 
attacked  by  Saracens,  his  enemies,  Ugo  defends  it  and  his 
young  stepmother.  He  is  victorious  but  is  wounded 
severely  in  the  combat.  Parisina  cares  for  him  and  their 
love  is  brought  to  a  consummation.  But  they  are  be- 
trayed and  by  order  of  the  tyrant,  husband  of  the  one  and 
father  of  the  other,  are  executed.  The  scene  of  the  execu- 
tion is  the  artistic  heart  of  the  play,  Parisina's  death 
being  especially  touching.  The  last  act  is  taken  up  with 
the  remorse  of  Nicholas. 

Parisina  offers  nothing  new  or  distinctive  in  D'Annun- 
zio's  work,  and  any  discussion  of  its  faults  or  its  merits 
would  be  but  a  repetition  of  what  has  been  said  about  all 
his  recent  plays.    It  was,  however,  written  in  Italian. 

After  this  Italian  interlude  D'Annunzio  returned  again 
to  French  and  to  prose  with  a  drama  in  a  modern  setting, 
on  an  old  theme,  The  Honeysuckle  (La  Chevrefeuille, 
1913,  translated  as  The  Knife,  II  Ferro,  1914).  Two 
names  spring  at  once  into  the  mind  in  connection  with 
The  Honeysvckle,  —  those  of  Electra  and  of  Hamlet, 
for  Aude,  the  heroine,  like  these  two  unhappy  creatures, 
is  the  instrument  of  revenge  on  the  murderer  of  her  father, 
who  has  married  her  mother ;  like  Electra  she  is  actuated 
by  a  burning  desire  for  revenge ;  like  Hamlet  she  is  given 
to  melancholy  and  brooding. 

Aude  is  tortured  by  a  terrible  secret,  which  prevents 
her  from  sleeping,   overclouds  her  life,   embitters  and 


124         THE   CONTEMPORA.RY  DRA.MA   OF   ITALY 

revolts  her.  What  this  is  we  do  not  find  out  for  two  acts 
while  she  raves  and  the  intrigue  is  getting  under  way. 

It  is  said  that  The  Honeysuckle  derived  its  title  from  the 
lai  of  Marie  de  France,  though  what  the  connection  is 
between  the  Tristan  and  Iseult  story  and  D'Annunzio's 
play  is  hard  to  see.  The  appeal  of  this  play,  written  in 
prose,  is  addressed  to  the  nerves  rather  than  to  the 
emotions  or  the  intellect.  There  is  an  excessive,  almost 
irritating,  use  of  the  principle  of  suspense,  for  after  two 
long  acts  of  waiting  to  learn  Aude's  terrible  secret,  the 
spectator  begins  to  feel  bored.  By  putting  his  explanation 
so  far  toward  the  end  of  the  play  D'Annunzio  loses  more 
than  he  gains.  By  keeping  the  horror  veiled  he  hopes 
to  heighten  our  sense  of  it,  but  is  only  successful  in  making 
us  sceptical  about  its  existence  and  annoyed  at  having  a 
neurotic  patient  for  a  heroine.  As  usual  the  main  beauties 
of  the  drama  are  in  the  accessories. 

If  one  follows  D'Annunzio's  career  as  dramatist  from 
its  early  stages  to  The  Honeysuckle,  or  rather  to  Saint 
Sebastian,  it  becomes  clear  that  progressively  he  insists 
more  upon  the  scenic,  spectacular  side  of  the  drama. 
From  the  first  dramatic  Dreams  through  The  Dead  City, 
Glory,  The  Light  under  the  Bushel,  Francesca  da  Rimini,  and 
The  Ship  this  development  goes  on  to  culminate  in  the 
dance  dramas,  The  Martyrdom  of  Saint  Sebastian  and  La 
Pisanella.  The  stage  directions  become  longer  and  more 
complicated,  large  portions  of  the  action  are  mute,  the 
picture  becomes  more  and  more  important.  In  his  last 
production,  a  cinema  play,  Cabiria,  he  has  taken  the  last 
logical  step  and  made  a  drama  of  action  and  spectacle 
only. 

Cabiria  is  probably  a  mere  side  excursion  of  its  author 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  125 

into  a  field  not  properly  his  own,  but  he  takes  pains  to 
justify  and  explain  it  in  a  letter  which  throws  some  light 
on  his  recent  development.  Sensitive  as  he  is  to  the 
mode,  D'Annunzio  has  not  failed  to  take  up  with  the 
art-theatre  movement  in  the  revolt  against  the  realistic 
theatre  and  its  demand  for  the  imaginative  renewal  of 
the  drama.  He  quotes  Gordon  Craig.  "The  drama," 
he  says,  "is  sterile.  She  is  exhausted  by  the  strain  put 
upon  her  and  can  bear  no  progeny  in  the  old  manner* 
The  drama  of  words,  the  lifelike  play,  is  a  thing  of  the 
dead  past.  The  only  way  we  can  hope  to  revive  the  art 
is  by  going  back  to  the  original  plastic  idea  of  the  stage 
as  a  picture.  Drama  becomes  ballet,  acting  —  dancing. 
The  appeal  to  the  ear  must  be  supplemented,  if  not  sup- 
planted, by  the  appeal  to  the  eye."  Then  he  goes  off  into 
an  apology  for  the  picture-play  and  a  speculation  as  to  its 
future.  It  is  a  liberating  factor  in  the  fact  that  it  is  not 
bound  by  the  limits  of  the  theatre ;  it  can  depict  all  human 
and  natural  activity;  it  has  no  limits  of  time  or  space. 
Miracles  can  be  shown,  Ovid's  Metamorphoses  for  example ; 
the  heroic  ages  of  the  past,  the  great  discoveries  of 
archaeology  are  fitting  subjects.  It  is  capable  of  any- 
thing, always  with  the  limitation  that  it  is  a  machine  and 
inanimate.  All  this  is  from  an  interesting  letter  of 
D'Annunzio's. 

The  plot  of  Cabiria  needs  no  description.  Suffice  it 
to  say  it  is  laid  at  the  epoch  of  the  Second  Punic  War  and 
follows  the  orphan  girl,  Cabiria,  through  many  hair- 
raising  adventures  —  volcanic  eruptions,  pirates,  con- 
flagrations and  battles  —  until  she  marries  the  young  man 
of  her  choice.  It  is  mixed  up  with  the  story  of  Sophonisba. 
There  are  many  striking  things  in   Cabiria;   the  giant 


126         THE  CONTEMPORA.RY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

Nubian  slave  is  a  most  picturesque  figure,  and  some  of 
the  scenes  —  like  the  interior  of  the  temple,  the  spectacle 
of  a  caravan  crossing  the  desert  —  are  in  the  poet's 
very  best  style.  His  pictorial  imagination  has  the  fullest 
sway  unhampered  by  the  exigencies  of  reality,  and  in  conse- 
quence Cabiria  is  a  fine  spectacle,  but  as  drama  it  is  of 
little  moment.  *»■! 

D'Annunzio's  latest  production  is  a  Tragedia  lirica, 
La  Piave  (1918),  to  which  Italo  Montemezzi  has  written 
music. 

Since  the  outbreak  of  the  great  war  he  has  devoted 
himself  mainly  to  aviation,  oratory  and  to  the  writing  of 
a  romance,  his  Leda  without  the  Swan  (Leda  senza 
cigno).  He  has  announced  several  plays,  however, 
among  them  the  final  member  of  the  Malatesta  trilogy, 
Sigismondo  Malatesta,  a  modern  play.  La  Pieta,  a  San 
Francesco  and  an  Amaranta. 

The  study  of  the  eighteen  plays  of  Gabriele  D'Annunzio 
thus  completed,  may  one  modestly  attempt  a  summing  up 
of  the  "divo  Gabriele"  as  a  dramatist?  There  is  no 
denying  that  he  is  the  foremost  artist  of  present-day  Italy. 
The  Italian  literary  world  is  divided  into  two  camps, 
D'Annunzians  and  non-D'Annunzians.  How  does  it 
happen  that  his  influence,  so  great  as  to  amount  to  a 
furor,  has  been  acquired  by  a  series  of  plays  none  of 
which  has  been  a  success?  With  the  greatest  of  Italian 
actresses,  one  of  the  greatest  in  the  world  —  Eleonora 
Duse  —  as  his  interpretress,  he  has  nevertheless  not 
produced  a  single  popular  play  in  the  sense  that  Giacosa's 
As  the  Leaves  or  Rovetta's  Romanticism  is  popular.  La 
Gioconda  had  a  merest  succes  d'estime  and  the  majority 
have  been  flat  failuresj    Gloryj   The  Light    under   the 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  127 

Bushel,  More  than  Love,  Fedra  were  all  hissed.  How 
then  is  it  that  D'Annunzio  has  so  commanding  a 
position  ? 

In  the  first  place  he  carries  over  into  the  drama  a  large 
portion  of  the  fame  and  authority  he  justly  achieved  in 
other  fields.  As  novelist  and  lyric  poet  he  easily  stands 
foremost  in  the  Italian  world;  his  dramatic  fame  is  a 
reflection  derived  from  his  literary  renown.  In  the  second 
place,  he  has  really  many  beauties,  a  play  of  his  being 
like  a  necklace  of  glittering  things,  some  of  them  jewels 
—  and  the  string  weak. 

Homage  must  be  paid  to  his  literary  virtuosity,  about 
which  too  much  can  scarcely  be  said.  There  has  never 
been  an  Italian  writer  who  had  so  masterly  and  bril- 
liant a  command  of  words.  "He  flings  them  boldly 
about,  right  and  left,  with  the  air  of  one  who  inherits  the 
Latin  culture  of  a  thousand  years  and  exults  in  the 
mastery  of  the  sweetest  language  the  world  has  known." 
He  is  the  Richard  Strauss  of  modern  Italian,  having 
every  resource  of  linguistic  orchestration  at  his  command. 
His  flow  of  images  is  truly  marvelous;  the  balance  of 
his  sentences  is  perfect,  his  taste  exquisite.  In  this  ele- 
ment of  his  art  lies  a  large  part  of  the  secret  of  his  appeal 
to  Italian  audiences.  D.  H.  Lawrence  in  his  Tvdlight 
in  Italy  describes  a  production  of  The  Light  under  the 
Bushel  in  a  tiny  provincial  town.  The  peasants  are 
carried  away.  "*0h,  bello,  bellissimo,'  they  cry.  It 
was  the  language  that  did  it.  It  was  the  Italian  passion 
for  rhetoric,  for  the  speech  which  appeals  to  the  senses 
and  makes  no  demand  on  the  mind.  When  an  Englishman 
listens  to  a  speech  he  wants  at  least  to  imagine  that  he 
understands  thoroughly  and  impersonally  what  is  meant. 


128         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

but  the  Italian  only  cares  about  the  emotion.  It  is  the 
movement,  the  physical  effects  of  the  language  upon  the 
blood  which  gives  him  the  supreme  satisfaction.  His 
mind  is  scarcely  engaged  at  all.  He  is  like  a  child  hearing 
and  feeling  without  understanding.  It  is  the  sensuous 
gratification  he  is  after.  D'Annunzio  can  control  the 
current  of  the  blood  with  his  words." 

His  greatest  merit  is  closely,  perhaps  even  causally, 
bound  up  with  one  of  his  greatest  faults.  D'Annunzio 
himself  is  often  deceived  by  his  own  words  into  taking 
them  for  drama  and  substituting  speech  for  action. 
"A  German  critic  speaks  slightingly  of  'Das  Geklingel  der 
schonen  Phrasen'  —  the  jingling  of  dulcet  phrases  —  as  a 
positive  obstacle  to  the  action  —  an  entirely  just  opinion. 
Often  we  feel  that  we  cannot  hear  the  play  because  of  the 
words,"  says  James  Huneker. 

More  than  once  in  the  discussion  of  the  plays  D'Annun- 
zio has  been  described  as  having  a  vivid  pictorial  imagi- 
nation. /  This  is  another  of  his  valuable  dramatic  assets. 
Each  set  and  each  tableau  is  a  masterpiece.  His  early 
training  as  a  painter  has  here  borne  fruit.  He  calls  to 
his  aid  all  the  plastic  arts,  each  grouping  of  figures,  each 
gesture  of  the  actor  is  thought  out.  "A  stage  manager 
without  a  rival,  he  is  at  the  same  time,  when  he  is  at  his 
best,  a  painter,  a  sculptor,  and  an  architect.  Everything 
is  combined  in  his  theatre  to  obtain  a  happy  grouping  of 
the  personages  to  evoke  from  the  harmonious  attitudes, 
gracious  gestures,  tragic  or  solemn."  As  he  grows  older 
this  element  becomes  stronger,  greater  care  being  taken 
with  every  play  to  make  scene  and  action  harmonize. 
The  setting  becomes,  as  in  Saint  Sebastian,  for  example, 
a  vehicle  coordinate  in  importance  with  the  words  them- 


GABRIELE  d'aNNUNZIO  129 

selves ;  the  stage  directions  become  more  and  more  elab- 
orate and  more  and  more  integral.  It  has  been  said  that 
a  stage  direction  is  a  playwright's  confession  of  weakness 
—  implying  as  it  does  his  inability  to  get  his  detail  into 
the  dialogue.  D'Annunzio's  innumerable  stage  directions 
seem  to  call  for  a  division  into  two  classes,  —  those  which 
embody  description  of  setting  and  other  accessories, 
which  are  legitimate;  and  those  which  embody  some 
matter  integral  to  the  play,  which  are  illegitimate  since 
such  matters  should  be  incorporated  by  some  means  into 
the  body  of  the  play. 

Benedetto  Croce  speaks  of  D'Annunzio's  objectivity, 
his  sense  of  the  reality  of  external  objects.  For  him  the 
things  of  the  world  have  an  actuality  almost  passionate. 
From  his  early  contact  with  the  Verists,  French  and 
Italian,  he  acquired  a  keen  faculty  of  observation  and 
retentive  memory  for  details;  from  his  archaeological 
and  artistic  studies,  love  of  beautiful  works  of  art.  Details 
of  beauty  and  horror  stamp  themselves  indelibly  upon  his 
memory  to  be  used  later  as  the  occasion  requires.  The 
visible  world  exists  to  him  in  as  real  a  sense  as  to  Theophile 
Gautier.  The  plays  are  intensely  objective  as  to  all 
accessories. 

In  another  sense,  however,  there  was  never  an  artist 
more  subjective.  His  plays  are  but  one  long  and  varied 
study  of  himself.  He  is  deficient  in  "  dramaticity ",  in 
the  power  of  making  live  other  beings  outside  his  own 
being.  The  minor  characters,  those  he  sketches  in,  are 
perhaps,  indeed  most  often,  the  product  of  observation; 
his  major  characters  are  the  result  of  introspection, 
personifications  of  his  own  moods  and  emotions.  The 
constant  recurrence  of  the  same  types  will  be  sufficient 


130         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

proof  of  this  —  the  sinful,  beautiful  woman,  the  blood- 
thirsty hero  subjected  to  the  sinful  woman,  the  Superman, 
—  these  types  recur  again  and  yet  again. 

Among  his  dramatic  assets  must  be  reckoned  a  fine 
sense  of  the  tragic  and  an  eye  for  situation.  Nevertheless 
scenes  of  real  pathos,  such  as  the  third  act  of  La  Gioconda 
and  the  third  act  of  Francesca  da  Rimini,  alternate  with 
claptrap,  such  as  Silvia's  appearing  with  her  hands 
crushed,  the  torturing  of  prisoners  by  Malatestino,  the 
shooting  of  the  captives  by  Basiliola  and  the  smothering  of 
La  Parisina.  Karl  Vossler  describes  his  development 
thus,  "from  poet  to  virtuoso,  to  decorator,  to  craftsman, 
to  charlatan." 

It  would  seem  that  in  any  summary  of  his  qualities  as 
a  dramatist,  certain  striking  merits  must  always  be  accred- 
ited to  him.  Among  these  are  an  unvarying  virtuosity 
of  style,  a  vivid  pictorial  imagination,  a  keen  eye  for 
actuality,  a  sense  of  tragedy  and  the  whole  darker  side  of 
human  nature  and  experience,  an  ability  to  construct 
eflFective  detached  situations.  As  to  his  faults,  the  obvious 
ones  are  the  substitution  of  words  for  action,  the  inability 
to  project  his  creative  imagination  into  another  per- 
sonality, the  monotony  of  his  major  persons,  the  egoism 
which  renders  the  persons  of  the  play  mere  projections  of 
his  own  qualities  and  moods,  the  cold  and  cruel  failure 
of  interest  in  men  as  human  beings. 

If  this  appraisal  seems  severe  it  should  be  compared 
with  the  estimates  given  of  his  dramatic  work  by  con- 
temporary Italian  critics.  Garguilio  and  Borgese,  the 
latest  of  these  critics,  have  scarcely  a  good  word  to  say 
of  him  as  a  playwright,  giving  all  their  praise  to  him  as 
a  poet  and  a  novelist.    A  few  considerations  may  be 


GABRIELE   d'aNNTJNZIO  131 

offered  to  reinforce  the  appraisal  of  D'Annunzio,  and  to 
justify  its  apparent  severity. 

His  insuperable  limitation  to  re-creating  people  on  the 
stage  is  that  he  has  no  humanity.  He  is  not  interested  in 
life  nor  has  he  sympathy  or  understanding.  Life  is  to 
him  merely  an  aesthetic  exhibit,  as  it  were,  a  work  of  art 
in  which  the  weak  suffer  and  the  strong  triumph.  Moral- 
ity, love  for  one's  fellow,  sympathy,  are  suppressed  in  the 
search  for  beauty.  He  might  well  have  said  with  the 
French  actor,  "What  matter  the  deed  so  the  gesture  be 
beautiful."  Artistic  torture,  graceful  murder,  lovely 
crime,  are  justified.  He  has  no  social  sense.  All  the 
humanitarianism,  socialism,  communism  and  great  move- 
ments of  recent  years  are  as  non-existent  to  him.  The 
sight  of  poverty  excites  neither  indignation  nor  com- 
passion in  him.  He  perceives  wretchedness  as  clearly  as 
any  artist  but  does  not  react  from  it.  To  Verga,  for 
example,  rags  are  pitiable,  to  D'Annunzio  they  are 
picturesque.  True  drama  is  not  made  of  such  stuff  but 
is  compound  of  the  human  heart.  ^Esthetic  hero  and 
heroine  leave  us  cold. 

A  second  defect,  a  corollary  of  the  first,  is  that 
D'Annunzio  has  not  a  grain  of  humor,  not  a  spark  of  wit. 
There  arc  but  two  strings  to  his  lyre,  the  beautiful  and 
the  horrible;  as  for  the  humorous,  the  satirical,  the 
pathetic,  the  kindly,  they  do  not  exist.  In  the  whole 
of  his  vast  production  there  is  not  even  a  humorous,  much 
less  a  funny  scene.  The  very  first  act  of  Francesca  da 
Rimini  contains  a  passage  in  which  the  jester  exchanges 
coarse  jibes  with  the  serving  women.  It  is  far  more 
grotesque  than  laughable,  but  is  the  only  approach  to 
comedy  in  all  the  eighteen  dramas.    It  is  inexpressibly 


132  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

trying  to  sit  through  five  solid  hours  of,  let  us  say,  The 
Martyrdom  of  Saint  Sebastian  and  never  once  relax  into  a 
smile. 

Time  and  again  it  has  been  pointed  out  that  D'Annunzio 
has  no  sense  of  the  theatre;  his  subjects  are  subjects 
for  treatment  in  other  forms.  Arthur  Symons's  criticism  of 
The  Dead  City  serves  as  a  criticism  of  all  the  plays.  "  He 
has  transplanted  the  novel  to  the  stage,  and  by  sheer  force 
of  emotion  he  has  made  the  conversations  absorbingly 
interesting,  even  when  they  are  not,  properly  speaking, 
dramatic.  Whenever  he  attempts  to  make  the  ordinary 
stage  effects  he  does  them  crudely,  and,  unfortunately, 
he  is  not  content  to  do  without  them  altogether.  But  in 
the  greater  part  of  the  play  he  does  without  them,  and 
it  is  then  that  by  a  very  specious  sort  of  simplicity,  he 
creates  an  atmosphere  entirely  his  own,  in  which  certain 
human  beings,  reduced  to  the  elements  of  sensation,  to 
whatever  is  fundamentally  animal  in  the  soul,  move 
strangely  and  yet  according  to  their  nature,  electrically 
alive,  suffering  all  the  agonies  of  instinct  in  conflict  with 
instinct."  D'Annunzio's  dramas  are  in  a  state  of  ecstatic 
immobility,  psychologically  as  well  as  from  the  point  of 
view  of  intrigue.  We  have  beings  filled  with  impulses; 
theh"  bosoms  pant,  they  are  unsatisfied,  they  hate,  and 
love,  and  —  do  nothing.  Their  creator  cherishes  the 
verse : 

"  Je  hats  le  mouvement  qui  deplace  la  ligneJ* 

The  essential  fault  of  The  Dream  of  a  Spring  Morning, 
that  the  protagonist  being  a  mad  woman  has  no  spiritual 
development,  is  the  fault  of  all  the  remaining  plays. 
With  perhaps  one  exception,  that  of  Fedra,  the  characters 


GABRIELE   d'aNNUNZIO  133 

think  and  act  and  feel  precisely  the  same  at  the  end  of  the 
last  act  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  first. 

Finally,  and  not  least  important,  D'Annunzio  has  no 
message  to  convey.  He  is  the  supreme  dilettante.  It  is 
of  prime  importance  in  the  drama  to  seek  to  please,  to 
attempt  no  heavy-handed  preaching,  but  in  these  our 
modern  days  when  all  humanity  is  concerned  with  vital 
solutions,  that  is  not  suflScient.  One  is  not  presenting 
human  beings  at  all  if  he  is  presenting  them  without  these 
interests.  And  to  present  human  beings  is  the  supreme 
duty  and  the  paramount  privilege  of  the  drama.  Here 
D'Annunzio  misses  fire;  he  does  not  understand  or 
care  about  modern  life;  he  lives  in  his  own  world  apart 
from  the  rest,  a  world  compounded  of  the  partially  un- 
reconcilable  elements  of  literary  reminiscence,  self-wor- 
ship, hysterical  patriotism,  blood-lust,  instinct,  and 
ritualism,  shut  off  from  actuality  by  an  impenetrable 
ego.  Socialism  to  him  is  merely  the  triumph  of  the  many- 
headed  beast,  the  people ;  morality  the  empty  prejudice 
of  a  worn-out  tradition;  comradeship  a  mockery;  the 
only  reality  is  beauty  and  self.  Karl  Vossler  likens  him 
to  a  moth  flitting  about  the  burning  flame  of  modern  life. 
Maurice  Muret  says  his  instability  is  not  insincerity,  as 
some  Italian  critics  have  called  it,  but  rather  the  two  keen 
perceptions  of  a  many-sided  intelligence.  However  that 
may  be,  he  has  no  convictions  and  is  in  consequence  not 
convincing.  He  has  nothing  to  say  to  modern  men,  and 
contents  himself  with  tickling  their  aesthetic  senses. 

Gabriele  D'Annunzio's  position  in  the  drama  has  yet  to 
be  fixed.  With  all  his  faults  he  stands  out  as  the  greatest 
literary  man  on  the  stage  to-day.  Benedetto  Croce  says 
of  him,  "  Is  he  a  constructive  thinker  and  a  sage  ?    Is  he  a 


134         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALT 

profound  and  coherent  philosopher?  A  good  counselor? 
No.  But  he  is  a  poet  and  that  ought  to  suffice;  the 
more  so  that  this  species  of  poets  by  divine  right  is  rarer 
than  that  of  the  sages,  the  reasoners,  and  the  good  coun- 
selors." D'Annunzio  is  a  great  lyric  poet  who  has  turned 
to  writing  plays. 


CHAPTER  V 
The  Later  Realists 

Enrico  Annibale  Butti  is  called  by  Italian  critics 
an  Ibsenite :  they  say  that  he  has  acquired  both  inspiration 
and  technic,  both  manner  and  matter,  from  the  Scandi- 
navian master.  But  one  feels  that  they  base  this  state- 
ment upon  superficial  resemblances,  such  as  the  pre- 
ponderance of  talk  over  action,  a  certain  tendency  toward 
symbolism,  discursiveness,  a  pedagogic  leaning.  They 
find  all  these  things  and  conclude  that  Butti  is  a  genuine 
Ibensite.  Indeed,  Butti,  through  the  mouth  of  Domenico 
Oliva,  in  the  preface  to  his  Utopia,  says  of  himself,  "He 
boasts  of  his  debt  to  Ibsen ;  he  says  and  sustains  it  that 
he  has  understood  perfectly  the  aesthetic  conception  of 
the  author  of  Ghosts  and  The  Master  Builder,  and  since 
this  conception  pleased  him  and  he  found  it  in  conformity 
with  his  own  artistic  tendencies  and  those  of  the  in- 
tellectual age  through  which  we  are  passing,  he  seized 
upon  it  and  produced  a  work  in  which  he  tries  to  point  out 
some  of  the  great  contradictions  of  our  stormy  contem- 
porary spirit." 

Butti,  having  boasted  of  his  adherence  to  the  tenets  of 
Ibsen,  calls  for  an  investigation  of  his  claim.  Indeed,  as 
regards  the  externals  there  is  a  decidedly  Scandinavian 
aspect  to  Utopia,  The  Race  for  Pleasure  and  Lucifer. 
But  below  this  surface,  what  a  difference  in  spirit  and  in 
thought !    Butti  has  taken  themes  that  Ibsen  might  have 


136         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

used,  but  has  transposed  them  into  the  Italian  mode,  and 
in  the  transformation  has  so  emasculated  and  denatured 
them  that  instead  of  being  grim  and  uncompromising 
arraignments  of  prejudice,  or  magnificent  revolts  against 
dead  custom,  they  are  an  amiable  justification  of  the 
existing  order,  —  as  if  Die  GoUerddmmerung  were  to  be 
re-orchestrated  by  Rossini. 

Ibsen's  bleak  manliness  and  virility  become  in  Butti 
nervousness  and  agitation.  The  profound  conviction  that 
follows  the  reading  of  A  Doll's  House  or  Hedda  Gabler 
has  no  adequate  counterpart  in  the  vague  discontent  or 
the  baffled  unrest  that  one  feels  after  seeing  The  End  of  an 
Ideal  or  The  Tempest  —  the  one  in  Butti's  own  estimation 
demonstrating  the  futility  of  revolt  against  society;  the 
other  refuting  the  doctrines  of  feminism.  In  our  bewilder- 
ment, we  find  ourselves  saying,  "We  have  seen  your  un- 
fortunate sufferers,  their  wretched  circumstances;  we 
have  responded  to  your  appeal  to  pity  them.  What  shall 
now  be  done  or  said  ?  "  Here  Butti  fails  us,  and  his  fail- 
ure is  not  the  noble  abstention  from  moralizing  of  the  great 
artist,  as  it  is  in  the  case  of  Ibsen,  who  always  adumbrates 
the  solution  of  his  problem  in  the  terms  of  the  problem 
itself ;  but  it  is  the  silence  of  a  man  who  has  no  solution  in 
his  mind,  who  has  not  faced  the  logic  of  his  own  events. 

Butti  is  in  reality  facing  backward.  His  plays  are 
a  series  of  attempts  to  disprove  or  to  discredit  aspects  of 
modern  thought  or  modern  social  reform  which  do  not 
please  him ;  in  Utopia,  eugenics ;  in  The  End  of  an  Ideal, 
feminism;  in  The  Tempest,  socialism;  in  Lucifer,  the- 
oretical science  and  modernism  in  religion ;  in  Ever  Thu^, 
the  emancipation  of  woman  and  free  love.  He  seems 
merely  pessimistic  and  destructive  because  he   has  no 


THE  LATER  REALISTS  137 

solution,  and  not  once  does  he  vindicate  one  of  the  newer 
ideas.  When  a  man  elects  to  be  a  critic  of  society,  even 
as  a  dramatist,  we  have  a  right  to  ask,  when  he  attacks 
liberal  religious  thought  and  the  scientific  interpretation 
of  the  world,  "  What  do  you  suggest  in  the  place  of  these  ? 
What  shall  we  do  with  the  problems  feminism  proposes 
to  solve?  What  shall  we  do  about  the  miseries  created 
by  a  tyrannical  marriage?"  These  questions  Butti 
ignores. 

He  has  decided  gifts  as  a  portraitist,  a  faculty  for  telling 
dialogue,  and  a  method  of  developing  etats  d'ame,  so  that 
away  from  thesis  drama,  he  is  capable  of  writing  first- 
rate  plays.  Flames  in  the  Dark,  for  example,  avoids  the 
uncertain  ground  of  controversy,  skirts  modern  problems, 
and  presents  a  strong,  noble  spiritual  study  of  an  admirable 
type  of  Italian  priests.  The  comedies,  too,  exhibit  a 
successful  side  of  Butti's  talent.  They  are  bitter  and 
satiric,  like  The  Giant  and  the  Pygmies,  or  farcically  laugh- 
able, like  The  Cuckoo,  but  always  they  are  good  and 
genuine  comedy. 

Butti  among  the  modern  Italian  playwrights  is  most 
concerned  with  personal  problems  of  members  of  society, 
rather  than  with  their  relations  to  one  another.  The 
debates  between  science  and  religion  which,  belated  in 
Italy,  were  in  full  blast  there  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago, 
yield  his  characteristic  material.  He  saw  that  in  the 
minds  of  the  multitude  there  was  an  irreconcilable 
antithesis  between  the  rationalistic-materialistic  view 
of  life,  as  embodied  in  Darwinism  and  the  other  philos- 
ophies based  on  natural  science  on  the  one  hand,  and  the 
dogmas  of  religion  on  the  other,  —  religion,  of  course,  to 
Butti,  as  to  all  Italians,  meaning  Roman  Catholicism.    It 


138         THE  CONTEMPORA.RY  DRA.MA  OF  ITALY 

is  disbelief  that  Butti  means  by  "science"  rather  than 
anything  constructive.  Life,  he  says,  must  have  an  end 
which  cannot  be  mere  pleasure  {The  Race  for  Pleasure) ; 
we  must  have  an  adequate  explanation  and  consolation 
for  suffering  (Lucifer),  and  these  we  find  only  in  the  bosom 
of  the  Church ;  there  is  solace,  there  peace,  and  if  it  cannot 
satisfy  the  cravings  of  the  curious  mind,  so  much  the  worse 
for  the  mind-  In  spite  of  the  narrow  limitations  created 
by  these  views  his  work  is  sincere  and  serious,  —  a 
genuinely  valuable  study  in  the  ideas  of  contemporary 
Italy.  That  his  tendencies  were  not  in  accord  with  the 
rest  of  the  world,  outside  of  his  own  circle,  that  "the  times 
are  out  of  joint"  for  him,  makes  him  less  illuminating  as 
a  teacher,  but  does  not  vitiate  the  sincerity  with  which  he 
presents  his  problems. 

Enrico  Annibale  Butti  was  born  in  Milan  in  1868,  and 
died  of  phthisis,  poor  and  wretched,  in  1915.  An  only 
son,  the  pet  of  his  parents,  he  was  too  domestically  and 
too  delicately  reared.  He  inherited  from  his  father  a 
sanguine,  even  violent  temperament;  from  his  mother 
those  qualities  which  contributed  most  to  make  him  a 
literary  man,  —  a  lively  imagination,  sensibility,  intelli- 
gence. His  early  teachers  discovered  in  him  an  aptitude 
for  mathematics,  and  following  their  advice,  Butti  went 
to  the  University,  entering  the  faculty  of  physics  and 
mathematics.  After  passing  brilliant  examinations  for 
the  first  two  years,  he  wearied  of  this  branch  of  learning 
and  went  into  medicine.  Doctoring,  he  soon  discovered, 
was  also  not  to  his  taste,  and  once  more  he  shifted,  this 
time  to  the  faculty  of  law,  where  he  took  a  degree.  In 
the  meanwhile,  though  he  was  not  yet  twenty  and  still  a 
student,  he  began  to  write,  his  first  attempts  being  fiction. 


THE  LATER  REALISTS  139 

His  father  urged  him  to  go  into  a  law  office,  but  his 
heart  was  not  in  the  work,  and  after  he  had  thrown  away 
his  first  case  in  a  ludicrous  manner,  he  retired  definitely 
from  the  law  and  gave  himself  entirely  over  to  writing. 
He  never  made  a  great  name,  or  achieved  a  substantial 
popularity ;  he  was  much  too  purely  intellectual  to  make  a 
commercial  success.  Through  all  his  life  he  seemed  to  be 
pursued  by  relentless  ill  luck;  he  died  in  disease  and 
poverty.  He  was  out  of  harmony  with  his  milieu  and  his 
epoch,  which  fact,  rather  than  some  occult  influence, 
accounts  for  what  he  called  ill  luck. 

Butti  could  scarcely  have  been  better  prepared  for  a 
literary  career.  Well  educated  and  richly  endowed  by 
nature,  he  had  encountered  nearly  all  the  dominating 
ideas  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  he  had  strengthened  and 
exercised  his  dialectic  powers  in  his  years  of  training  for 
the  law,  and  his  faculty  for  close  observation  and  analysis 
in  his  medical  studies.  Like  Sainte-Beuve,  who  traced 
to  his  student  days  at  the  Ecole  de  M6decine  the  genesis 
of  his  critical  method,  Butti  sharpened  his  interest  in 
natural  science  and  its  methods,  getting  especially  a  view 
of  the  problems  of  the  relations  of  mind  and  body.  He 
acquired,  too,  the  clinical  method  of  studying  souls. 
From  his  academic  training  he  retained  also  a  love  of 
ideas  for  their  own  sake,  rather  than  for  their  practical 
application.  It  may  be  reckoned  a  fault  of  Butti's,  as 
it  is  of  Bernard  Shaw,  that  he  almost  invariably  presents 
both  sides  of  his  case,  making  the  opposing  side,  if  any- 
thing, the  stronger;  he  so  adequately  gives  the  Devil 
his  due  that  one  is  never  sure  that  he  is  not  the  Devil's 
disciple.  His  first  novel.  The  Immoral  Man  {Vim- 
morale),  produced  in  his  law  school  days,  discusses  the 


140         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

relation,  or  rather  contradiction,  between  law  and  justice, 
and  the  question  of  punishment  for  crime. 

Before  he  turned  to  drama,  like  D'Annunzio  late  in 
life,  Butti  wrote  several  more  novels :  The  Automaton 
(U Automate),  in  which  man  is  regarded  as  a  plaything  in 
the  hands  of  nature,  not  acting  but  acted  upon,  la  bete 
humaine  (in  Zola's  phrase),  who  is  but  putty  in  the  hands 
of  the  woman  who  exasperates  his  sensuality;  The  Soul 
{L'Anima)  sternly  essays  to  prove  the  existence  of  the 
soul  and  its  immortality,  confronting  a  sceptical  young 
medical  student  with  a  philosophic  turn  and  an  epileptic 
young  woman,  whose  visions  and  hallucinations  convert 
him  to  belief  in  the  supernatural.  In  The  Enchantment 
{L' Incantesiino) ,  his  other  novel  of  importance,  the 
enchantment  is  love,  the  experience  of  sex,  which  over- 
comes and  transforms  the  originally  misogynous  hero.  At 
the  time  of  producing  these  last  novels,  Butti  was  in 
possession  of  his  full  mental  powers  and  his  technic  as  a 
writer ;  he  had  a  style  simple  yet  subtle  enough  to  enable 
him  to  express  fine  shades  of  meaning ;  he  had  forgotten 
much  of  his  pedantic  youthful  erudition  and  had  read 
enough  of  northern  dramatists,  Scandinavian,  German, 
and  French,  to  have  come  under  the  spell  of  the  drama  of 
ideas. 

The  Bitter  Fruit  {II  frutto  amaro),  his  first  attempt, 
need  not  detain  us,  but  Utopia  (Uutopia)  (1894)  contains 
much  that  is  best  in  his  plays  and  more  that  is  essential 
to  the  study  of  them.  It  registers  in  his  opinion  the  bank- 
ruptcy of  pseudo-science  and,  to  a  certain  degree,  of  real 
science.  Its  Doctor  Serchi  is  trying  to  rebuild  the  world 
by  rational  methods.  In  his  Utopia,  all  prejudices  and 
superstitions  give  way  to  the  practical  business  of  im- 


THE-  LATER  REALISTS  141 

proving  the  human  race.  He  preaches  the  emancipation 
of  women  from  the  servitude  of  marriage,  the  casting 
off  of  binding  family  ties,  freedom  to  love,  and,  in  the 
name  of  eugenics,  the  destruction  of  crippled  and  diseased 
children.  But  this  a  priori  philosophy,  taking  no  account 
of  what  Butti  would  call  "human  weakness",  is  not  well 
received.  Serchi's  "immorality"  is  execrated,  he  is 
forced  to  quit  the  city.  In  the  process  of  proselyting, 
he  has  converted  a  young  girl,  who  has  given  herself  to 
him,  and  while  he  is  away  on  a  tour  of  propaganda,  she 
gives  birth  to  a  child,  hideously  deformed.  Having  been 
badly  received  everywhere  on  his  tour,  Serchi  returns  in 
discouragement,  to  be  confronted  by  his  own  child,  a 
monster.  All  his  Utopian  theories  break  down.  The 
mother  of  his  child  demands  that  he  surrender  his  dream 
and  marry  her,  the  better  to  assist  in  the  inglorious  task 
of  caring  for  their  wretched  offspring.  Defeated  and 
discredited,  with  death  in  his  heart,  he  consents. 

Butti  begs  the  question  and  avoids  the  issue  he  has 
tried  to  raise  by  making  Serchi  not  a  sound  scientist,  but 
a  fool  and  a  cruel  idealist,  setting  him  up  as  a  puppet  to 
be  knocked  over ;  his  statement  of  the  case  is  unconvinc- 
ing, because  he  has  not  made  his  revolutionary  a  sane 
man. 

The  Whirlpool  {II  vortice)  (1894)  is  a  pure  tragedy  rather 
than  a  thesis  drama,  a  study  of  the  baseness  of  the  pro- 
tagonist, a  good-natured  weakling  who  falls  from  abyss  to 
abyss  of  ignominy,  financial  and  personal. 

In  the  End  of  an  Ideal  (La  fine  d'un  ideale)  (1898) 
he  returns  to  the  discussion  of  contemporary  interests, 
this  time  the  feminist  movement  and  women's  rights.  In 
true  Italian  fashion,  Butti  has  missed  completely  the 


142         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

significance  of  the  demand  for  emancipation  of  half  the 
race,  mistaking  woman's  demand  for  justice  and  freedom 
for  a  desire  for  license.  There  is  no  alternative  in  his 
mind  between  marriage  for  eternity  and  promiscuity. 
Woman  to  the  Latin  has,  up  till  the  last  ten  years,  re- 
mained the  inferior  sex,  needing  support  and  protection 
and  authority  to  save  her  from  her  very  self.  Pure  as 
she  is,  with  a  standard  of  purity  set  by  the  man,  she  is  fair 
game  for  the  pursuit  of  any  libertine.  Unable  to  reason 
and  act  for  herself,  she  gains  her  ends  by  guile,  deceit,  and 
coquetry.  There  has  been  among  them  no  conception  of 
woman  as  man's  equal  and  companion,  respected  and 
feared  as  such,  or  of  the  honorable  and  open  friendship 
of  men  and  women,  the  ideal  the  northern  people  have  set 
up.  To  the  Latin,  freedom  for  women  means  license. 
The  contemporary  and  still  current  misinterpretation  of 
Ibsen's  The  Doll's  House,  for  example,  by  French  and 
Italian  critics,  is  astonishing.  Nora,  to  them,  is  merely  the 
mfoagere  who  capriciously  deserts  her  duty,  her  husband 
and  children,  to  run  wild.  They  cannot  understand  the 
imperious  revolt  of  her  individuality  against  the  futility 
and  degradation  of  her  existence. 

In  the  next  three  plays  Butti  produced  a  trilogy  —  The 
Atheists.  Here  lies  the  kernel  of  his  work,  —  the  discus- 
sion of  religious  and  philosophical  problems  in  dramatic 
form.  Here  he  may  be  said  to  have  distilled  the  essence, 
yes,  the  very  quintessence,  of  his  thought.  One  of  his 
critics  says  of  him,  " '  Marriage,'  says  he,  '  is  a  delusion,' 
but  he  makes  things  even  worse.  Free  love  is  also  a  delu- 
sion. So  is  celibacy ;  so  are  the  pursuit  of  pleasure,  the 
search  for  health,  enjoyment  of  money,  the  enthusiasms 
of  social  reform  and  revolution,  science,  free  thought. 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  143 

Butti  even  affirms  with  stolid  earnestness  in  Ludfero  that 
a  middle-class  girl  who  leaves  home  to  earn  a  living  must 
necessarily  go  to  the  dogs."  The  Race  for  Pleasure  (La 
corsa  at  piacere)  (1900),  Ludfero  (1900),  and  The  Tempest 
(La  tempesta)  (1901)  all  embody  this  sceptical  view  of 
life. 

Aldo  Rigliardi,  the  hero  of  The  Race  for  Pleasure,  reasons 
to  himself  in  this  fashion  :  "  All  is  vanity ;  we  are  assm-ed 
of  nothing  in  this  world.  Science  cannot  prove  an  aim  for 
existence,  or  the  value  of  morality.  The  only  certainty  is 
pleasure.  Gaudeamus  igitur."  The  greatest  of  pleasures 
is  love,  and  Rigliardi  gives  himself  with  unreserved  ardor 
to  its  pursuit.  In  the  end  at  the  death  of  his  mother,  the 
one  being  he  really  loved,  Rigliardi  is  smitten  with  terrible 
remorse,  the  inevitable  logical  end  of  The  Race  for  Pleasure. 

The  theme  of  Lucifer  is  more  strictly  religious. 
Atheism,  or,  rather,  agnosticism,  says  Butti,  cannot 
satisfy  simpler  souls,  cannot  satisfy  the  great  souls  under 
the  strain  of  sorrow.  The  "  consolations  of  religion  "  is  a 
phrase  fraught  with  meaning. 

Lucifer  is  the  nickname  of  an  ex-priest,  who  has  become 
a  complete  sceptic,  and  is  now  a  professor  in  a  small 
provincial  university.  His  son,  his  magnum  opus,  he  has 
reared  in  strict  accordance  with  the  latest  scientifico- 
atheistical  ideas.  He  has  not  even  been  baptized,  which 
indicates  a  negation  of  appalling  significance  in  his  world. 
Yet  he  marries,  by  civil  ceremony,  the  daughter  of  a 
fervent  Catholic,  and  after  a  time  the  young  wife  is 
suddenly  stricken  with  a  mortal  malady.  The  young  man, 
having  no  spiritual  prop  to  lean  upon,  and  witnessing  the 
spectacle  of  his  wife's  comfort  at  the  hands  of  an  old 
priest  he  has  induced  his  father  to  admit  into  the  house, 


144  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

feels  a  great  misgiving  growing  in  his  mind.  He  questions 
his  father,  who  can  give  him  no  satisfying  answer.  Finally, 
when  the  priest  announces  to  him  that  his  wife  is  dead, 
he  gives  in  and  takes  refuge  in  the  arms  of  the  venerable 
father;  religion  can  console  him.  Even  his  father,  the 
unbeliever,  is  shaken.  "Who  knows  !  Who  knows  !" 
he  murmurs,  as  the  curtain  goes  down. 

This  play  is  an  example  of  Butti's  trick  of  speaking  on 
both  sides;  if  agnosticism  has  no  satisfactory  answer  to 
the  difficult  question  of  the  aim  and  purpose  of  existence, 
if  Lucifer  is  not  a  constructive  thinker,  nevertheless,  the 
Catholic  who  is  set  in  opposition  to  him  is  a  bigot,  whose 
prejudice  leads  him  to  the  cruelty  of  refusing  to  see  his 
dying  daughter.  Butti,  himself,  apparently  does  not 
know  if  there  be  a  middle  ground  between  belief  and  dis- 
belief.   At  least  this  play  gives  no  hint  of  such  a  ground. 

The  remaining  member  of  the  Atheist  trilogy.  The 
Tempest,  is  an  anti-socialist  tract.  Granted  Butti's 
premises  and  conclusion,  he  proves  that  the  idea  of  a 
community  proceeding  without  the  use  of  force,  founded 
on  pure  good-will  of  the  governed,  is  a  Utopian  dream,  and, 
at  the  same  time,  that  violence  and  revolution  by  force 
of  arms  do  not  advance  humanity  one  jot,  —  a  two-sided 
thesis  which  it  would  be  diflScult  to  maintain  in  the  face 
of  history. 

Flames  in  tJie  Dark  {Fiamm£  nelVomhra)  (1904)  is 
Butti's  masterpiece.  In  this  he  undertakes  to  prove  or 
to  disprove  nothing,  and  is  free,  therefore,  to  study  and 
present  his  characters  as  a  dramatist,  and  he  has  succeeded 
in  producing  one  of  the  gems  of  the  modern  stage. 

The  specimen  he  takes  for  special  observation  is  the 
soul  of  an  old  priest,  gentle,  idealistic,  religious.    He  is 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  145 

ambitious  to  gain  a  bishopric,  and  is  the  logical  candidate 
for  the  place,  but  the  misconduct  of  his  sister  prevents  its 
coming  to  him.  He  waits  and  is  again  on  the  point  of 
realizing  his  ambition,  when  the  sister  returns  to  live 
with  him,  ostensibly  penitent  over  her  misconduct.  But 
terrible  disillusionments  are  in  store  for  him.  He  again 
fails  to  get  the  appointment  and  finds  that  the  wretched 
woman  had,  during  her  absence,  lived,  not  with  one  man, 
as  he  had  supposed,  but  had  become  a  prostitute;  at 
this  very  moment  she  is  conducting  an  amour  far  from 
innocent  with  a  doctor  of  the  village  where  they  live. 
After  a  bitter  struggle  the  better  element  in  the  old  man 
triumphs  and  he  resolves  to  devote  his  life  to  redeeming 
this  lost  soul,  his  sister,  giving  up  his  ambitions  and  hopes. 
He  takes  her  away  with  him  to  a  little  mountain  village. 
"We  can  go  off  there,"  he  says,  "and  learn  what  neither 
of  us  ever  knew,  to  sacrifice  ourselves  —  there  is  no  other 
redemption,  no  other  truth." 

Don  Antonio,  the  priest,  stands  forth  as  Butti's  most 
original  and  satisfactory  creation.  His  hopes,  his  fears, 
his  angers,  his  renunciations,  the  emergence  of  his  real 
self  under  the  stress  of  circumstances,  are  logical  and  clear. 
The  conclusion  as  to  the  value  of  self-abnegation  has  the 
true  Ibsenite  ring  of  lofty  rebellion  against  material 
standards.  Flames  in  the  Dark  has  a  quality  of  moral 
superiority  and  a  note  of  hope  rare  in  Butti.  The  milieu, 
a  country  presbytery,  an  uncommon  one,  is  painted  with 
good  effect,  the  minor  characters  silhouetted  clearly,  and 
one  feels  through  the  whole  play  that  artistic  and  logical 
inevitableness  that  marks  the  great  plays. 

The  more  recent  dramas  cannot  be  said  to  differ  in  any 
essential  respect  from  the  earlier  ones.    The  best  of 


146         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

them  are :  In  the  Land  of  Fortune  {Nel  paese  della  fortuna) 
(1910),  a  hectic  drama  of  gambling,  illicit  love,  and  suicide ; 
Ever  Thus  {Sempre  cosl)  (1911),  a  return  to  the  discussion 
of  feminism;  Poetic  Intermezzo  (Intermezzo  poetico) 
(1913),  and  Seductions  {Le  seduzione)  (1913),  written  in 
collaboration  with  Anastasi  Gugliemo.  A  serious  play, 
half  drama,  half  comedy,  is  his  recent  The  Invisible  Sun 
{II  sole  invisibile)  (1913).  The  Invisible  Sun  is  the  love 
which  Irene  Donic,  a  devoted  wife  and  mother,  suddenly 
feels  for  a  famous  pianist,  old  enough  to  be  her  father. 
Though  she  has  an  adoring  husband  and  a  child,  she 
declares  her  love  to  him  and  inflames  him  with  her  ardor. 
But  he,  a  sensible  and  honest  man,  feels  that  she  cannot 
abandon  all  her  ties  and  follow  him  to  a  life  of  uncertainty 
and  solicitude.  He  insists  to  her  that  they  renounce  their 
dream  of  happiness,  and  like  sensible  people  go  their 
different  ways. 

The  Castle  of  Dreams  {II  castello  del  sogno)  (1910)  is  its 
author's  only  verse  play,  and,  in  a  sense,  his  favorite 
child,  —  the  sickly  one  of  the  brood.  It  is  unfitted  for 
stage  production,  but  Butti  was  assiduous  in  reading  it 
aloud.  It  is  in  the  nature  of  an  allegory  in  which  he 
tries  to  prove  the  irresistible  power  of  reality,  life,  strife, 
and  love,  over  the  dream,  which  is  inertia. 

His  few  comedies  show  a  spirit  of  genuine  fun.  At 
times  a  bit  over-satirical,  nevertheless  they  are  too  good 
to  warrant  the  neglect  to  which  they  have  fallen  heir. 
The  Giant  and  the  Pygmies  {II  gigante  ei  pigm£i)  (1903) 
is  not  in  his  best  manner.  It  was  badly  received  at  its 
premiere  in  Milan  because  it  was  said  that  Butti  was 
aiming  a  shaft  at  the  greatest  and  noblest  of  his  contem- 
poraries, the  poet,  Leopardi.    The  giant,  the  superman. 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  147 

by  a  strange  play  of  events,  becomes  in  practical  life  the 
victim  of  the  pygmies,  the  small  souls,  who  surround 
him.  Even  his  wife  deceives  him  with  the  lowest  and 
most  despicable  of  the  pygmies.  All  for  Nothing  {Tutto 
per  nulla)  (1906)  is  called  commedia  drammatica,  but  The 
Cuckoo  {II  Cucolo)  (1907)  "is  a  jewel  of  wit  and  grace,  of 
satire,  suffused  with  a  delicate  tint  of  that  melancholy 
which  rises  from  regret  for  fleeting  existence.  It  reads  like 
a  story  in  dialogue  of  exquisite  workmanship." 

Butti  was  never  financially  successful.  He  calls 
himself  poveretto,  and  says,  "But  alas  !  I  am  not  lucky, 
and  if  Fortune  has  not  been  unfaithful  to  me,  it  is  because 
she  was  never  my  companion."  His  plays  have  nearly 
all  aroused  an  interest,  more  or  less  polemic,  —  Utopia, 
The  Giant  and  the  Pygmies  most  of  all,  and  in  lesser 
degree  Lucifer  and  the  End  of  an  Ideal.  He  has  the  great 
merit  of  stimulating  thought.  But  his  ideas  are  not  for 
the  present  generation.  He  writes  of  himself,  "I  doubt 
progress ;  atheistic  and  socialistic  systems  seem  grotesque 
to  me  or  harmful,  but  I  must  grant  that  our  adversaries 
have  on  their  side  the  weight  of  numbers,  strength,  and 
the  future,  while  I  myself  am  but  a  remnant  of  the  past, 
of  that  doomed  past  which  will  arise  no  more."  He 
demands  a  return  to  Catholic  faith  as  an  escape  from  the 
abyss  of  unbelief ;  he  affirms  the  excellence  of  the  present- 
day  organization  of  the  family  and  of  society;  he  is 
interested,  rather,  in  the  preservation  of  the  stains  quo 
than  in  amelioration. 

Critics  are  agreed  in  praising  Butti's  technical  expertness 
in  dramatization.  The  plays  read  almost  as  well  as  they 
act.  He  has  undoubtedly  a  coup  d'oeil  for  dramatic 
situation  and  effect.    He  excels  in  genre  painting  —  in  bits 


148  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

like  the  presbytery  of  Flames  in  the  Dark;  the  house  of 
the  atheist  professor  in  Lucifer;  the  bourgeois  interior  of 
The  Race  for  Pleasure.  The  action  never  slows  down, 
never,  for  all  its  complexity,  becomes  muddy ;  it  is  varied 
and  kept  vivid  by  the  introduction  of  new  and  interesting 
episodes,  and  even  the  gloomiest  of  the  plays,  and 
most  of  them  are  gloomy,  sparkle  with  clever  bits  of 
dialogue. 

The  plays  of  Antonio  Fogazzaro  (1842-1911)  call  for 
mention  mainly  because  of  the  authority  lent  them  by 
their  author's  fame  in  the  novel.  The  three  plays  in  the 
volume  Scene  were  written  by  way  of  experiment  at  the 
end  of  Fogazzaro's  life,  partly  through  a  natural  desire 
to  try  his  hand  at  a  new  form,  partly  at  the  instigation  of 
Giuseppe  Giacosa.  The  three  Scene  are,  The  Red  Camo/- 
tion  (II  garofola  rosso),  written  in  the  dialect  of  Vicenza; 
The  Masked  Portrait  {II  ratratto  mascherato) ,  and  Nadejde. 
Of  these,  the  second  is  the  best,  as  savoring  least  of  its 
author's  characteristic  sentimentality.  The  Red  Carnation 
is  a  comedy  of  manners  in  the  style  of  Goldoni  and  Gallina. 
In  The  Masked  Portrait,  a  young  widow,  noble  of  soul  and 
pure,  receives  definite  proofs  of  her  dead  husband's 
infidelity  to  her,  but  stifles  in  herself  the  involuntary 
movement  of  indignation  and  disgust  which  is  about  to 
stain  her  widow's  sorrow.  Nadejde  is  a  real  Fogazzarian 
theme,  the  power  of  the  simple,  wholesome  philosophy  of 
a  young  and  innocent  country  girl  over  the  degenerate 
opportunism  of  the  super-civilized. 

Fogazzaro's  plays  are  better  read  than  acted.  They 
are  delicate,  emotional,  poetic,  and  profound,  written  in 
impeccable  style.  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  their  author 
did  not  turn  earlier  and  oftener  to  the  drama. 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  149 

The  brothers  Antona-Traversi,  Camillo  and  Giannino, 
claim  our  attention  as  having  produced  an  astonishing 
body  of  drama.  They  have  an  additional  interest  of 
belonging  to  a  different  class  of  society  and,  therefore, 
presenting  a  different  point  of  view  from  any  of  the  writers 
that  have  been  studied.  They  are  the  sons  of  the  wealth- 
iest landed  proprietor  in  Lombardy,  who  has  been  a 
member  of  Parliament  for  many  sessions,  and  they  are 
in  consequence  vitally  in  touch  with  the  aristocratic  and 
cultured  world.  D'Annunzio  is  the  only  other  Italian 
dramatist  who  moves  in  these  social  circles.  The  other 
playwrights,  Giacosa,  Verga,  Praga,  and  Butti,  are  bour- 
geois to  their  finger  tips;  only  Rovetta  may  be  said  to 
have  had  a  social  experience  similar  to  that  of  the  Antona- 
Traversis. 

Camillo  Antona-Traversi,  the  elder  of  the  brothers,  was 
born  in  1857,  and  after  receiving  a  fine  training  in  his 
home  city,  Milan,  went  to  the  University  of  Naples.  He 
entered  the  teaching  profession  immediately,  and  has 
made  himself  a  name  as  a  literary  investigator,  having 
written  illuminating  commentaries  on  Metastasio,  Ugo 
Foscolo,  Leopardi,  Carducci,  and  others.  He  was  for 
years  professor  of  literature  in  the  Military  College  at 
Rome,  and  in  other  Licei.  His  active  scholarly  life  has 
left  him  time,  however,  for  the  avocation  of  letters.  His 
list  of  plays  is  long ;  more  could  not  be  asked  of  a  man  who 
devoted  his  whole  time  to  dramatic  composition.  At 
present,  Camillo  Antona-Traversi  lives  in  Paris,  where 
he  is  correspondent  for  several  important  Italian  journals. 
He  continues  to  write  plays,  which  are  often  produced  in 
the  French  Capital  before  they  appear  in  Italy.  He  is 
one  of  the  populous  colony  of  Gallicised  Italian  authors. 


150         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

C.  Antona-Traversi's  first  play,  Albert's  Marriage 
{II  matrimonio  d' Alberto)  (1881),  a  trifle  which  is  still 
seen  occasionally  in  the  repertory  of  good  companies  as 
a  curtain-raiser,  is  an  innocuous  bit  of  romanticism.  A 
young  viveur,  Albert,  returning  to  his  native  city  after 
years  of  absence,  falls  in  love  again  with  his  childhood 
friend,  the  pure  and  innocent  Irene,  who,  while  he  was 
away,  had  made  him  the  hero  of  her  girlish  dreams. 

After  several  other  dramas,  George's  Sacrifice  {It 
Sacrafido  di  Giorgio)  (1886) ;  Period  and  a  New  Line  I 
(Punto  e  da  capo)  (1887) ;  Nora's  Daughter  {La  figlia  di 
Nora)  (1889),  and  Swallows  or  Chaffinches  {Tordi  o  frin- 
guelli)  (1890),  which  he  wrote  under  a  pseudonym,  there 
came  the  best  of  all  his  plays,  as  well  as  the  most  popular, 
The  Rozeno  Family  {Le  Rozeno)  (1891). 

It  is  diflBcult  at  this  distance  of  time  and  temperament 
to  explain  the  sensation  which  The  Rozeno  Family  caused 
on  its  first  appearance.  It  is  a  good  play,  but  neither 
startlingly  new  nor  striking.  It  applies  the  photographic 
method  of  Giacosa's  Sad  Loves  to  an  entirely  disreputable 
family.  At  the  time,  its  unflinching  portrayal  of  low 
life  seemed  unduly  detailed  or  unduly  sordid,  and  it  was 
declined  by  manager  after  manager.  It  remained  for 
some  time  in  the  desk  of  its  author,  but  at  last,  in  1891 
through  the  agency  of  the  dramatist,  Luigi  Suner,  it  was 
brought  out  by  Cesare  Rossi.  Antona-Traversi  woke 
next  day  to  find  his  play  the  subject  of  a  violent  contro- 
versy ;  in  which  reams  of  paper  were  spoiled  and  gallons 
of  ink  shed.  He  was  accused  of  all  the  literary  and  many 
of  the  moral  crimes  in  the  calendar;  like  Giacosa  and 
Henri  Becque  before  him,  of  immorality,  of  degraded 
taste,  of  lying,  of  a  hundred  other  flagrant  things. 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  151 

Antona-Traversi  says  that  the  subject  of  The  Rozeno 
Family  was  chosen  by  him  to  silence  the  criticism  he  had 
received  apropos  of  Nora's  Daughter.  They  had  said, 
"  It's  too  ingenuous ;  too  good."  So  Antona-Traversi 
said  to  himself,  "Very  well!  I'll  give  the  comedy 
they  want.  It  will  be  all  about  loose  women  and  pros- 
titutes." 

He  attempts  no  solution  of  a  social  problem,  he  has  no 
sociological  arrihe  pensee,  but  merely  presents  in  its 
stark  naked  truth  a  class  of  society  and  those  who  move 
in  it.  The  Rozeno  Family  is  quite  free  from  a  certain 
pedantry  which  mars  others  of  his  works. 

He  has  never  done  anything  else  as  good  as  this  play, 
though  in  the  twenty-seven  years  that  have  elapsed 
since  its  production  he  has  given  out  about  twenty-five, 
some  of  which  must  be  mentioned.  Dance  Macabre 
(Danza  macabra)  (1893)  shows  how  the  perversity  and 
idleness  of  the  gilded  youth  make  them  merely  a  prey  of 
the  practical  bourgeoisie;  The  Children  (7  Fanciulli) 
(1894)  shows  a  typically  Italian  manner  of  discussing 
and  regarding  economic  problems,  making  social  ques- 
tions matters  of  sentiment.  The  spectator  is  called  upon 
to  feel  sorry  for  the  poor  and  the  oppressed  and  then  — 
do  nothing.  It  exhibits  the  Italian  reaction  from  misery, 
—  pity,  not  indignation. 

With  his  Earth  or  Fire  (Terra  o  fuoco)  (1896),  Antona- 
Traversi  invades  the  territory  exploited  by  Butti,  —  the 
struggle  between  religion  and  unbelief.  In  this  case,  the 
play  finds  its  problem  in  the  conflict  of  conjugal  love  with 
dogmatic  faith. 

At  the  heart  of  this  little  play  (it  is  of  only  one  act) 
lies  a  situation  that  it  is  very  necessary  to  understand  if 


152         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

one  is  to  appreciate  certain  important  aspects  of  modern 
Italian  literature,  —  those  that  reflect  the  intellectual  life 
of  the  country.  This  situation  is  concerned  with  the 
national  and  popular  attitude  toward  questions  of  religion. 
The  Italians  have  been  Roman  Catholics  for  so  many  cen- 
turies that  the  Church's  ritual  and  teaching  have  entered 
into  their  very  bones.  To  an  Italian,  religion  means 
Catholicism,  and  to  be  unecclesiastical  is  to  be  irreli- 
gious .  Of  course,  there  are  Protestant  believers  in  Italy,  but 
they  are  not  numerous  enough  to  weigh  in  the  typical  com- 
munity. The  world  is,  therefore,  divided  into  two  camps 
—  Catholics  and  non-Catholics,  or  unbelievers.  Religion 
is  the  sum  of  the  teaching,  the  ritual,  the  tradition,  the 
authority,  the  prerogative,  the  dogma  of  the  Church, 
not  a  personal  matter,  or  a  matter  of  social  intercourse. 
The  personal  and  social  problems  and  /esponsibilities 
which  confront  society  outside  the  Church  are  ignored  or 
denied  by  the  Church  and  the  devout.  There  has  been, 
of  course,  a  rationalistic  movement  in  modern  Italy  so 
influential  that  belief  and  unbelief  have  been  confronted 
in  every  human  relation.  Science  and  criticism,  with 
their  liberating  vistas,  have  made  great  strides.  But 
Modernism  has  never  recovered  from  the  blow  dealt  it  by 
Pius  X  in  the  Encyclical  Pascendi.  The  Catholic  Church 
stands  where  it  stood ;  and  the  basis  of  Italian  thought  is 
dogma  —  it  departs  from  dogma  or  it  returns  to  dogma. 
Italy  is  Catholic  in  its  socialism,  Catholic  in  its  atheism, 
Catholic  in  its  Protestantism.  One  must  bear  these  things 
in  mind  if  he  is  to  understand  the  fire  and  passion  that 
informs  a  conflict  between  unbelief  and  faith. 

To  return  to  Camillo  Antona-Traversi,  —  his  next  play 
was  a  satiric  comedy,  a  contrast  to  his  usual  serious, 


THE  LATER  REALISTS  153 

not  to  say  heavy  manner.  The  Parasites  (/  Parissiti)  (1899) 
is  a  humorous  study  of  those  social  leaders  who  exist  on 
the  organization  of  charity  enterprises,  and  is  a  fine 
satiric  study  of  the  type  of  man  whose  methods  of  business 
are  legal  but  not  honest,  and  a  presentation  of  the 
wretchedness  that  such  a  person  is  bound  to  cause  to 
those  near  him. 

French  influence  is  evident  in  the  series  of  one-act 
"shockers"  contained  in  the  volume,  AUi  Unici:  Babbo 
Goumas  (1906) ;  In  Bordata  (1908) ;  The  Acquitted  Man 
{VAssolto)  (1906),  and  Cahary  (Calvario)  (1908).  These 
are  the  Italian  Grand  Guignol;  they  are  meant  to  pro- 
duce in  the  spectator  only  physical  horror  and  fear, 
disgust  and  revolt.  Calvary,  for  example,  is  a  long- 
drawn-out  and  detailed  study  of  an  infanticide.  In  In 
Bordata,  a  street-walker  entertains  her  own  drunken  son, 
whom  she  recognizes  only  after  she  has  robbed  him  and 
he  has  stabbed  her,  not  knowing  who  she  is. 

Since  1908,  C.  Antona-Traversi  has  put  out  a  matter 
of  fifteen  or  twenty  plays.  Historical  dramas,  like  Stroz- 
zino  (1907),  and  The  Last  Days  of  Goffredo  Mameli  (Gli 
ultimi  giomi  di  Goffredo  Mameli)  (1916),  where  he  shows 
the  death  bed  of  the  young  Garibaldian  poet.  Domestic 
dramas,  like  Mother  (Madre)  (1912);  In  Pace  (1912); 
The  Child's  Prayer  (La  prighiera  della  bimba)  (1913) ; 
The  Stme  Tower  (La  torre  di  pietra)  (1913) ;  The  Gag 
(II  Bavaglio)  (1914) ; ,  After  44  Years  {Dopo  44  anni) 
(1915),  and,  finally,  the  Corsican  drama,  Don  Matleo 
(1917),  and  a  Stahat  Mater  (1917).  Many  of  these  have 
been  written  in  collaboration  with  other  writers.  There 
is  no  space  to  mention  all  the  titles  of  his  formidable  list. 

Camillo  Antona-Traversi  is  a  serious  thinker,  gifted 


154         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

with  insight  and  with  a  knack  of  depicting  swift  and  subtle 
play  of  emotion.  Slightly  pedantic,  he  represents  the 
serious  movement  in  the  modern  drama,  concerning 
himself  however  with  contemporary  life  not  as  reformer 
but  as  observer. 

Giannino  Antona-Traversi  has  been  as  little  influenced 
by  foreign  writers  as  any  author  of  his  generation.  He 
is  cosmopolitan  in  a  sense,  but  at  the  same  time  purely 
indigenous  in  his  Italianism.  While  his  brother  Camillo, 
Giacosa,  Rovetta,  Butti,  Praga,  e  tutti  quanti,  were  finding 
in  France  and  Scandinavia  their  guiding  stars,  Giannino 
Antona-Traversi  could  speak  thus  of  his  own  efforts: 
"  I  am  trying  to  bring  back  Italian  comedy  to  its  glorious 
tradition.  I  should  like  to  see  it  become  again  gay, 
simple,  smiling,  gently  ironic,  supple,  and  light."  This 
playwright  would,  then,  discard  foreign  seriousness  and 
heaviness,  would,  as  a  self-appointed  task,  revive  the 
gentle  art  of  Goldoni,  of  Torelli,  and  Gallina,  of  the  dialect 
writer,  Bersezio ;  would,  in  a  word,  bring  comedy  back  to 
its  true  function,  castigating,  perhaps,  but  castigating  by 
amusing. 

Born  in  1861,  Giannino  passed  his  youth  in  the  usual 
pursuits  of  the  callow  man  about  town,  contracting  debts 
which  his  father  paid,  prosecuting  amours,  acquiring  as  a 
by-product  a  deep  knowledge  of  the  beau-monde,  the 
aristocratic  circles  of  Milan.  Though  at  this  epoch  his 
writing  was  confined  to  scribbling  billets-doux  and  signing 
his  name  to  notes,  he  had  his  wits  about  him  and  was 
observing,  experiencing,  jotting  down  in  his  memory  the 
things  he  writes  about  later  on.  One  fine  day,  Giannino's 
father  refused  to  settle  any  more  of  his  debts,  and  the 
young  man,  thrown  on  his  own  resources,  began  breeding 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  155 

silkworms,  and  was  making  some  headway  when  his 
father  demanded  rent  for  the  farm  where  he  was  con- 
ducting his  business.  Giannino  then  renounced  his  indus- 
trial ambitions  and  returned  to  Milan  to  become  a  pro- 
fessional prestidigitateur.  Here,  again,  he  was  making 
headway  when  again  his  father,  a  noble  of  the  old  school, 
ashamed  of  his  son's  profession,  showed  him  the  door. 
Traversi  moved  bag  and  baggage  to  a  near-by  hotel  and 
set  up  as  dramatic  writer.  He  had  many  friends,  men 
and  women,  in  the  theatre,  and  one  of  these,  a  prominent 
actress,  divining  talent  in  him,  asked  him  to  write  her  a 
saynete  for  her  benefit  performance.  This  playlet,  The 
Morning  After,  was  an  immediate  success. 

A  somewhat  scandalous  tale  was  going  the  rounds  of 
Milanese  society  at  the  time,  and  this  Traversi  took, 
put  it  into  dialogue,  seasoned  it  with  witty  sayings  and 
hons  mots,  and  gave  it  to  the  world  as  The  Morning  After 
{La  Mattina  dopo)  (1898).  A  certain  lady,  getting  rid 
of  her  husband  under  pretext  of  a  headache,  goes  alone 
to  a  ball,  there  to  meet  her  friend  and  go  out  with  him. 
Her  husband  has  his  suspicions.  The  next  morning, 
having  learned  of  an  indiscretion  of  her  lord  and  master, 
the  lady  turns  the  tables  on  him,  the  accused  becomes  the 
accuser,  and  honor  is  safe. 

In  this,  his  first  play,  slight  though  it  be,  Traversi  found 
himself.  He  never  fumbled  for  his  technic;  he  applies 
the  Verist  formula,  not,  as  did  Verga,  to  the  study  of  the 
peasantry,  but  to  a  group  in  high  society.  He  knew 
his  world  from  having  lived  in  it ;  he  was  endowed  with  a 
rich  vein  of  satire  and  instinctively  took  to  writing 
Verist  comedy.  He  represents  with  extraordinary  truth 
and  vivacity  the  milieu  he  has  chosen,  that  of  the  social 


156  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

level  somewhat  ironically  called  "high  class",  in  away 
calculated  to  appeal  instantaneously  to  the  audiences  of 
the  Lombard  capital. 

Through  vanity  (Per  Vanita)  (1892)  is  another  short 
sketch  in  the  same  tone  and  similar  vein.  It  is  woven 
out  of  nothing,  like  one  of  the  exquisite  scenes  of  Marivaux 
or  De  Musset,  a  cobweb  in  delicacy  and  filminess. 

Traversi  has  written  two  kinds  of  plays  and  it  is  con- 
venient to  observe  this  natural  division  of  his  work : 

First,  there  are  one-act  plays,  in  which  he  excels,  — 
polished,  witty,  with  slender  threads  of  plot ;  and,  second, 
plays  in  more  than  one  act,  more  pretentious,  more  elab- 
orate in  every  way.  Some  of  them  are  genuine  comedies 
of  manners,  but  on  the  whole  they  are  not  so  well  done 
as  the  shorter  ones.  His  inspiration  is  brief  and  episodic ; 
he  is  successful  only  when  he  does  not  force  his  talent, 
which  is  best  suited  to  short,  not  too  serious  plays. 

There  is  an  opportunity  in  Italy  for  one-act  plays  that 
exists  nowhere  else.  It  is  very  rare  for  a  dramatic  per- 
formance to  consist  of  one  play  only ;  there  are  practically 
always  two,  a  curtain-raiser  and  the  piece  de  resistance. 
In  fact,  it  is  not  uncommon  to  give  whole  evenings  of  one- 
act  plays  alone,  —  the  Teatri  a  sezioni  are  spreading 
rapidly.  Consequently,  dramatic  authors  do  not  regard 
the  short  play  as  apprentice  work,  or  as  a  thing  of  little 
worth.  On  the  contrary,  it  is  quite  as  worthy  as  its 
bulkier  kindred,  quite  as  actable,  quite  as  carefully 
written. 

Two  of  Traversi's  short  plays  have  been  noted  already. 
Any  selection  of  Traversi's  short  plays  should  certainly  in- 
clude Tlie  Bracelet,  The  First  Time,  The  Only  Excuse,  and 
The  Rocket.    Other  one-act  plays  are  Simple  Soul  {Anima 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  157 

semplice) ;  Hony  soil  qui  mal  y  pense;  The  Last  Hope 
(U  Ultima  spese),  and  The  Coat  of  Marten-fur  {La  Pelliccia 
di  martora). 

The  list  of  plays  in  more  than  one  act  is  long,  but  a 
judicious  selection  will  serve  to  give  an  idea  of  the  whole 
body.  The  Coquette  {La  Civetta)  (1894)  betrays  a  bitter 
and  enduring  hatred  against  the  idle  and  corrupt  men  and 
women  of  his  class.  The  humorist  disappears  before 
the  satirist.  The  Coquette  is  in  many  respects  the  best 
thing  Traversi  has  done.  It  is  a  character  study  of  the 
Countess  Julia  Racanate,  the  coquette,  who  delights  in 
exciting  the  desire  of  the  men  she  meets,  leading  them  on 
to  the  very  threshold  of  the  alcove,  and  then  slamming 
the  door  in  their  faces.  She  has  always  succeeded  in 
escaping  unscathed.  But  once  she  practices  her  art  on 
a  young  sculptor,  Carlo  Viti,  a  bearded,  virile,  fearless 
young  animal,  who,  in  a  moment  of  uncontrollable  pas- 
sion, bends  her  to  his  will  by  force.  She  is  furious ;  she 
tries  every  means  to  revenge  herself,  but  is  helpless  in  the 
face  of  his  strength  and  indifference.  She  has  to  endure 
defeat  and  take  warning  from  the  terrible  lesson  she  has 
had.  A  scabrous  subject !  But  Traversi  has  with  great 
tact  and  delicacy  avoided  all  suggestiveness  or  vulgarity. 
The  Coquette  is  a  lifelike  figure,  drawn  evidently  from  a 
model,  and  is  a  powerful  indictment  of  the  woman  of  the 
world  as  Traversi  knew  her.  The  sculptor  is  one  of  the 
two  virile  and  manly  figures  in  the  whole  list  of  dramas. 
He  is  sincere  in  his  love  and  in  his  life.  If  he  forces 
Julia,  it  is  at  her  own  invitation.  The  Coquette  exhibits 
a  new  side  of  Traversi  —  the  moralist.  Not  that  he 
appeals  in  the  name  of  a  higher  order  of  things  for  a  con- 
demnation of  his  heroine,  but  he  exposes  with  a  pitiless 


168  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

scalpel  all  her  vices  —  after  all  the  most  ejGFective  method 
of  reform  available  to  drama. 

The  Husband's  School  {La  Scuola  del  marito)  (1898)  is 
even  more  disagreeable  in  subject-matter  than  The  Coquette, 
and  is  unrelieved  by  Traversi's  usual  brilliancy.  But  it 
had  a  great  success  when  played  in  Paris  by  the  Novelli, 
because  it  was  convincing.  It  reminds  one  of  Brieux,  — 
the  Brieux  of  The  Three  Daughters  of  M.  Duponi  and 
Damaged  Goods.  The  depravity,  the  scepticism,  the  re- 
finement of  sensuality,  the  enervation  of  fatigue  which  pos- 
sess the  rich  and  idle  of  our  time  are  hurrying  them  to  dis- 
solution and  ruin.  This  is  Traversi's  general  thesis.  In 
particular,  he  studies  a  complex  aspect  of  the  relation 
between  husband  and  wife. 

The  Ascent  of  Olympus  {La  scalata  deVOlimpo)  (1899) 
returns  to  a  time-worn  theme,  that  of  the  bourgeois  in 
society.  Like  Moliere  and  Goldoni,  Traversi  is  amused 
at  the  spectacle  of  the  wealthy  man  of  plain  surroundings 
and  education  trying  to  hobnob  with  those  he  considers 
to  be  his  social  betters.  Unlike  his  great  predecessors, 
however,  Traversi  takes  the  part  of  the  bourgeois,  pities 
and  defends  him. 

The  Friend  {U Arnica)  (1900)  treats  an  old  theme  and 
one  always  popular  with  the  Latins,  —  the  impossibility  of 
a  friendship  between  a  man  and  a  woman.  The  Happiest 
Days  {I  Giorni  piii  lieti)  (1903)  are  those  just  preceding 
the  marriage  of  a  young  couple.  They  are  loving  and 
eager  to  be  united.  But  such  a  number  of  things  come 
up :  etiquette,  family  disputes,  quarrels  over  the  marriage 
contract,  matters  of  precedence,  prejudices,  irritation 
upon  irritation  into  which  the  young  couple  are  dragged. 
They  dispute,  they  wrangle,  and  finally,  when  they  have 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  159 

straightened  out  all  their  difficulties,  comes  the  news  that 
a  cousin  of  the  bride's  father  is  about  to  die,  and  the 
wedding  must  be  postponed.  The  "happiest  days" 
continue !  ^>  • 

In  1905  came  The  Fidelity  of  Husbands  {La  fedelta  del 
mariti)  ;  in  1907  Worldly  Charity  {Carita  nwndana),  in 
which  is  pilloried  the  prosecution  of  charitable  work  by 
the  nobility  as  a  cloak  for  amorous  intrigue ;  An  Honest 
Wife  (Una  moglie  onesta)  (1907)  presents  in  the  protag- 
onist a  cold,  calculating,  egotistical  sensualist,  pursuing 
gratification  regardless  of  those  who  are  injured ;  Martyrs 
to  Work  (Martiri  del  lavoro)  (1909)  are  those  young 
married  people  who  find  no  time  to  give  to  each  other, 
so  much  is  their  time  occupied  with  outside  "duties", 
benefit  societies,  meetings,  the  club,  hunting  parties, 
premieres,  and  all  the  rest. 

The  Wedding  Journey  (Viaggio  di  nozze)  (1910)  is 
of  the  old  well-made  shocker  variety,  turned  out  for  the 
commercial  theatre.  A  young  couple  have  given  up 
their  wedding  journey  under  strange  circumstances  and 
returned  to  the  bride's  parents.  There  is  some  terrible 
secret  between  them.  The  father  of  the  girl  learns  that 
the  son-in-law  has  been  conducting  an  affair  with  a 
certain  widow,  and  assumes  that  to  be  the  trouble ;  but 
as  a  matter  of  fact  the  young  man  has  broken  with  this 
woman.  When  the  girl  at  last  commits  suicide,  the  secret 
comes  out;  she  has  had  a  lover  and  has  killed  herself 
rather  than  confess  her  shame  to  her  father.  The  play 
had  considerable  vogue  in  Italy  and  even  in  Austria 
when  it  was  played  in  the  Viennese  Burg  Theatre. 

The  Mother  {La  Madre)  (1911),  considered  by  some 
critics  to  be  his  best  play.  The  Screen  (//  Parvento)  (1914), 


160         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

The  Great  Shadow  {La  grande  ombra)  (1915),  and  The 
Survivor  {II  sopravissuio)  (1916)  are  Giannino  Antona- 
Traversi's  latest  dramas. 

Antona-Traversi,  as  has  already  been  said,  applies 
the  Verist  methods  to  the  study  of  aristocratic  circles  in 
the  Italian  capital.  The  main,  almost  the  sole,  pre- 
occupation of  the  idle  rich  and  the  social  parasites  is 
"L'amore",  "corrupt  and  corrupting;  which  has  all  the 
exquisiteness  and  perversity  of  corruption."  Love  is  the 
great  game  which  you  play  to  keep  from  being  bored  to 
death.  It  is  coquetry,  ambition,  avidity  of  pleasure, 
sensuality,  the  occupation  of  idle  hours.  It  may  be 
innocent  flirtation,  it  may  be  adultery;  it  is  anything 
but  the  great  ennobling  passion  of  stout  hearts.  In  all 
the  plays,  there  are  only  two  persons  who  really  love,  and 
neither  of  them  belongs  to  the  class  Traversi  is  attacking 
—  they  are  Viti  of  The  Coquette,  a  sculptor,  and  Rai- 
mondo  of  The  Friend,  an  explorer. 

But  Traversi  does  not  feel  the  sickness  of  soul  in  the 
presence  of  this  corruption  that  an  Ibsen  would  feel ;  he 
is  too  well-bred  for  that  and  too  Italian.  Bitterness  and 
irony  are  as  far  from  him  as  homiletics  and  pedantry. 
As  gentleman,  he  perceives  the  foibles  of  his  con- 
temporaries, but  he  goes  into  no  vulgar  polemics;  he 
knows  how  to  bow  before  the  weaknesses  and  shames  of 
society  "incarnated  as  they  are  by  beautiful,  seductive, 
delicious  ladies  and  elegant  gentlemen,  —  only  his  bow 
is  a  trifle  too  ostentatious — ";  he  does  not  preach,  he 
mocks. 

Sir  Arthur  Pinero  is  notorious  in  the  English  theatre 
for  his  "  wise  friend  ",  who  invariably  appears  at  the  crucial 
point  with  the  inevitable  good  advice,  patting  some  one 


THE   LATER  REALISTS  161 

on  the  back,  escaping  the  platitudinous  only  by  a  hair's- 
breadth  if  he  avoids  it  at  all.  In  Giannino  Antona- 
Traversi's  plays,  he  is  duplicated ;  he  is  Ludovico  in  The 
First  Time,  Uberto  in  The  Coquette,  the  poverty-stricken 
but  unashamed  nobleman,  Delia  Volpe,  in  The  Ascent  of 
Olympus.  These  men  represent,  as  do  Pinero's  "wise 
friends",  the  author,  and  from  their  lips  we  may  gather 
his  philosophy  of  life,  a  sort  of  mundane  opportunism. 
He  is  not  a  constructive  thinker,  but  he  does  see  some 
faults  of  the  world  he  lives  in  and  holds  them  up  to  ridicule. 
Common  sense  is  his  standard  of  measuring  conduct  — 
the  common  sense  which  has  come  of  disillusionment. 
Traversi  has  not  the  balance  of  the  true  philosopher; 
he  displays  rather  the  detachment  of  the  true  comedian 
stiffened  a  bit  by  the  indifference  of  the  sceptic. 

Antona-Traversi's  bons  mots  enjoy  a  vogue  in  Italy 
comparable  with  that  of  Oscar  Wilde's  in  England  or 
Henri  Becque's  in  France ;  it  would  be  possible  to  cite 
many  that  are  current.  His  plays  so  sparkle  and  scin- 
tillate with  wit  that  they  could  easily  be  carried  by  the 
impetus  of  this  alone.  The  characters  toss  back  and 
forth  epigrams,  clever  riposts  of  which  some  are  funny, 
some  vulgar,  none  dull.  It  is  a  display  of  mental  fire- 
works. A  great  French  writer  used  to  say  he  had  to 
"extinguish"  all  his  phrases.  Traversi  does  just  the  con- 
trary :  he  lights  them  up.  His  style  is  all  his  own, 
shimmering,  cobwebby,  atmospheric  in  texture.  He  has 
more  than  once  been  compared  with  Marivaux, 

As  a  thinking  man,  Traversi  lacks  precisely  what  his 
far  greater  contemporary,  D'Annunzio,  lacks,  —  human- 
ity. It  is  his  most  serious  fault  that  he  is  so  occupied 
with  setting  before  us  aristocrats,  idlers  and  pleasure- 


162         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

seekers  as  such  that  he  forgets  to  make  them  men  and 
women.  They  spread  themselves  peacock-fashion  before 
the  spectator,  they  turn  around  and  about,  showing  all 
their  sides,  but  never  perform  an  action  or  utter  a  word 
that  shows  them  as  men  and  women.  The  play  takes  on 
a  cold  if  bright  intellectual  atmosphere,  and  one  is  con- 
scious that  the  strings  are  being  pulled  and  the  figures 
manipulated  by  the  author. 

Several  other  writers  may  be  roughly  classed  with  Butti 
and  the  brothers  Antona-Traversi  as  among  the  realists. 
Giuseppe  Baffico,  the  journalist  and  critic,  attempted  the 
theatre  with  success  in  his  The  Deserters  (/  Desertori) 
(1898),  a  study  of  the  artistic  temperament.  Other  plays 
of  his  are  Broken  Wing  {Ala  ferita)  (1898),  an  exquisite 
idyl ;  Other  People's  Fault  {Le  colpa  degli  altri)  (1900) ; 
On  the  Sill  (Sulla  Soglia)  (1902) ;  and  more  recently, 
The  Enemy  {II  Nemico).  Alfred  Oriani  (1852-1909)  has 
written  Unconquerable  {Invincible)  on  the  Hamlet  motive 
and  Jack's  Daughter  {La  Figlia  di  Gianni),  a  drama  of  the 
working  classes.  Gerolamo  Aurico  Nani  has  written  a 
MaV  occhio. 

The  names  of  the  writers  of  plays  realistic  in  intention 
is,  of  course,  legion,  but  the  ones  named  are,  it  seems, 
those  destined  to  longer  life  than  the  others.  To  the 
most  eminent  of  them  all,  so  prominent  that  he  stands 
definitely  apart,  a  special  study  must  be  given.  This 
preeminent  realist  in  drama  is  Roberto  Bracco. 


CHAPTER  VI 
Roberto  Bracco 

Roberto  Bracco  is  perhaps  the  most  widely  and  the 
most  favorably  known  dramatist  in  the  Italy  of  to-day. 
This  is  entirely  consistent  with  the  statement  that  as  a 
literary  artist  his  reputation  cannot  approach  that  of 
D'Annunzio ;  and  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  statement 
that  in  verse  plays  he  is  being  pushed  hard  by  Sem  Benelli, 
whose  fame  is  steadily  augmenting.  It  is  in  prose  drama 
—  the  actable  drama  of  the  theatre  —  that  Bracco  has 
made  his  success,  a  success  not  achieved  by  any  other 
dramatist  since  Giacosa. 

It  should  go  without  saying  in  Bracco's  case  —  since 
it  has  to  be  said  of  every  dramatist  of  the  present  era  — 
that  he  learned  much  of  technic  from  Ibsen  and  from  the 
great  Frenchmen,  Dumas  fils,  Porto-Riche,  Becque  and 
De  Curel ;  yet  to  all  he  may  have  learned  from  them  he 
adds  these  differentiating  elements,  —  the  flavor  of  Italian 
culture  and  the  imprint  of  his  own  salient  personality. 
His  period  of  pupilage  was  short ;  like  Ibsen  he  saw  quickly 
and  keenly  the  social  needs  and  weaknesses  of  his  native 
land,  the  narrowing,  hampering  effect  of  convention ;  the 
oppression  of  women  by  the  social  code;  the  injustice 
in  the  relation  of  employer  and  employed.  He  has  no 
Utopia  to  offer;  he  does  not  even  indicate  by  contrast 
the  higher  things  toward  which  men  should  be  led ;  such 
is  not  the  way  of  the  Italian  temperament,  whose  more 


164         THE  CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

or  less  tacit  creed  is  something  like  this :  Man  is  to  be 
pitied  rather  than  cured;  he  is  born  to  trouble  as  the 
sparks  fly  upward ;  we  are  all  damned ;  let  us,  then,  be 
good  to  one  another  and  understand  all  one  another's 
reasons  for  being  damned.  This  creed  Bracco  shares  with 
many  of  his  compatriots,  literary  and  lay. 

Roberto  Bracco  was  born  in  Naples  in  1862  and  is  still 
living  and  writing.  He  grew  up  in  Naples,  obtaining  his 
education  there,  and  at  the  age  of  seventeen  was  a  clerk 
in  the  Customs.  In  spite  of  this  uncongenial  employ- 
ment his  gift  for  letters  declared  itself,  and  he  began  to 
write,  publishing  poems  and  sketches  in  the  journals  of 
Naples,  writing  several  one-act  curtain-raisers  for  con- 
temporary actors,  serving  as  dramatic  critic  for  the  news- 
paper on  which  he  was  employed. 

These  little  saynetes  are  quite  obviously  the  work  of  a 
very  young  dramatist,  but  they  exhibit  a  robust  dramatic 
talent  and  a  very  genuine  sense  of  fun.  In  Do  Not  Unto 
Others  {N on  fare  ad  altri)  (1886),  in  He,  Her,  He!  (Lui, 
Lei,  Lui!)  (1887),  in  A  Traveling  Adventure  (Un  Awentura 
di  viaggio  (1887)  one  can  detect  the  preliminary  and 
practicing  flourishes  of  a  master  preparing  for  his  art. 

In  the  plays  that  he  wrote  during  the  years  1886-1893, 
Bracco  was  adding  to  his  native  gift  those  other  things  so 
essential  in  the  dramatist's  equipment  —  habits  of  ob- 
servation, knowledge  of  many  sciences  as  well  as  of  literary 
technic  and  practical  stagecraft.  In  one  of  these  plays 
A  Woman  (Una  Donna)  (1892),  Bracco  declared  his 
adherence  to  the  new  "theatre  of  ideas."  He  takes  the 
old  neo-romantic  theme  of  the  courtesan  reformed  by  love, 
so  familiar  as  the  theme  of  Dumas  fits'  La  Dame  avx 
Camelias, 


ROBERTO  BRACCO  165 

The  theaire  d'idees  has  not  easily  become  acclimatized 
in  Italy.  Italians  felt  when  this  genre  appeared,  and  they 
still  feel,  that  the  piece  a  these  has  no  legitimate  place  in 
the  playhouse.  Upon  the  publication  of  these  first  plays 
of  Bracco's,  Luigi  Capuana  wrote  to  him :  "  Why  do  you 
not  content  yourself  with  interesting  and  diverting  the 
public?  Why  do  you  insist  on  trying  to  teach? 
Dramatic  art  is  one  thing;  sociology,  philosophy,  and 
science  are  other  things."  But  Bracco  is  quite  prepared 
to  answer  these  questions.  He  declares,  in  a  courteous 
but  firm  reply,  that  sociology,  philosophy,  and  science  can 
very  well  furnish  the  subject-matter  for  drama,  provided 
only  the  dramatist  knows  enough  of  his  trade  to  give 
to  these  ideas  an  interesting  and  diverting  form.  So  far 
as  the  interest  and  diversion  go,  it  is  not  a  matter  so  much 
of  what  the  playwright  is  saying  as  how  he  is  saying  it; 
the  dramatist  may  as  well  say  things  that  are  worth  say- 
ing in  an  interesting  way  as  things  that  are  not  worth 
saying;  and  he  cites  as  examples  and  justifications 
Aristophanes,  Shakespeare  and  Ibsen. 

Unlike  Marguerite  Gautier,  transformed  by  the  love 
of  a  man,  Clelia,  the  heroine  of  A  Woman,  is  transfigured 
by  maternity,  to  the  point  of  sacrificing  her  life  and  happi- 
ness to  her  child. 

Bracco's  literary  habits  and  his  fertile  imagination  be- 
tray him  into  certain  incongruities  of  detail.  We  feel 
that  no  change  in  poor  Clelia's  soul  could  have  produced 
the  change  of  speech  registered,  for  example,  in  this: 
"What  is  my  son  to  me?  I  cannot  express  it  in  words. 
I  am  sure,  however,  that  from  the  very  first  moment  of 
my  motherhood  I  felt  that  it  was  absorbing  me  com- 
pletely, and  when  he  was  born  I  could  no  longer  live  except 


166         THE   CONTEMPORA.RY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

for  him  —  except  for  —  for  the  new  sensation  produced 
in  me  by  this  tiny  being."  The  romanticists  of  course 
have  the  immemorial  right  to  endow  all  their  persons  with 
eloquence ;  but  should  we  not  expect  greater  faithfulness 
from  a  realist  ? 

Masks  (Maschere)  (1893)  forsakes  France  for  Norway, 
—  indeed  it  is  more  "Ibsene"  than  anything  Butti,  the  ac- 
knowledged Ibsenite,  gave  us,  proposing  an  Ibsenite 
dilemma  and  offering  an  Ibsen  solution.  A  husband, 
coming  home  unexpectedly  after  a  long  absence,  finds 
that  his  wife  has  just  committed  suicide.  A  post-mortem 
examination  reveals  the  fact  that  she  is  several  months 
pregnant.  He  discovers  that  his  own  business  partner 
is  the  partner  of  her  shame ;  it  then  comes  out  that  she 
had  committed  suicide  in  despair  over  her  lover's  ap- 
proaching marriage.  The  wronged  husband  feels  an 
instinctive  savage  joy  in  the  thought  that  he  will  ruin 
the  guilty  man  by  denouncing  him,  by  shaming  him  out 
of  society  and  out  of  business.  But  soft!  there  is  his 
daughter,  the  child  of  the  disgraced  dead  woman,  a  little 
maid  of  fourteen  years.  He  cannot  shame  her  and  darken 
her  future  1  He  summons  the  guilty  man  and  says  to  him, 
"The  infamy  that  you  two  did  unites  us  forever.  We 
must  put  on  our  masks  and  continue  to  live  as  before. 
And  now  the  comedy  begins!"  Masks  unites  the  grim 
tragic  terror  of  the  North  with  the  burning  passion  of 
Naples. 

The  nature  of  Bracco's  plays  invites  a  study  of  them 
in  groups  rather  than  in  chronological  order.  They  fall 
naturally  into  foiu*  classes,  as  distinct  as  the  work  of  a 
modem  realistic  dramatist  can  be,  —  comedies,  plays  of 
social  and  economic  problems,  psychological  plays,  deal- 


ROBERTO   BRACCO  167 

ing  chiefly  with  the  complexes  of  the  feminine  soul  and 
with  the  suffering  of  women  under  social  wrongs,  and 
the  pure  tragedies,  dramas  of  incurable  suffering. 

Bracco  could  never  be  characterized  as  a  comic  artist, 
though  he  has  produced  some  dozen  comedies.  After 
the  first  few  youthful  sketches,  his  comedies  may  be  re- 
garded not  as  the  outpouring  of  a  gay  spirit,  but  as  the 
occasional  diversions  of  a  bitter  soul  primarily  concerned 
with  the  sorrows  of  existence.  His  recent  successful 
Madame  President  {La  Presidentessa)  (1915)  displays  his 
maturer  comedy  method.  It  was  a  novel  adapted  by 
Washington  Borg  for  the  stage.  Like  all  his  later  come- 
dies it  teems  with  wit,  with  play  on  words,  with  irony  and 
sarcasm,  with  those  surface  brilliancies  which  are  often 
sharp  and  bitter,  but  never  rich  and  genial.  These  plays 
are  keen,  satirical,  caustic,  concealing  unplumbed  depths 
of  suffering.  Leaving  out  the  one-act  trifles,  the  comedies 
are  The  Unfaithful  Woman  (L'lnfedele)  (1895);  The 
Triumph  {11  trionfo)  (1895) ;  The  End  of  Love  {La  fine 
dell'  amore)  (1896) ;  The  Bitter  Fruit  {II  fruMo  acerho) 
(1910)  and  The  Perfect  Love  {II  perfetto  amore)  (1910). 

The  Unfaithful  Woman  was  the  play  that  established 
Bracco's  reputation,  and  it  has  maintained  its  popularity 
ever  since.  It  has  been  successfully  given  in  Paris  by 
R^jane  and  in  America  by  Nazimova,  when  it  was  called 
The  Countess  Coquette.  It  is  in  the  high-life  tone  of 
Giannino  Antona-Traversi.  The  countess  Clara  has 
cajoled  her  husband  into  agreeing  to  a  compact  the  terms 
of  which  are  that  no  matter  what  she  does  he  will  not  be 
jealous.  She  gathers  about  her,  fortified  by  this  promise, 
a  host  of  admirers.  She  makes  a  rendezvous  with  one 
of  these,  known  as  the  most  unscrupulous  of  the  group. 


168  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

Gino  Ricciardi.  The  scene  at  the  apartments  of  this 
modern  Don  Juan  is  a  masterpiece ;  Clara  plumps  herself 
down  and  says,  "Well  !  here  I  am.  Seduce  me!"  The 
expert  Don  Juan  is  baffled  by  the  willingness  of  the  victim ; 
his  technic  requires  sentiment,  reluctance,  weakness ;  the 
coming-on  disposition  of  this  worldly  Rosalind  makes 
him  ridiculous.  Here  matters  stand  when  —  enter  the 
husband!  "I'm  going  to  kill  you,"  he  whispers  to  her 
fiercely.  "Not  here,"  she  whispers  back,  "it  would  not 
be  polite.  Wait  till  we  get  home."  In  the  last  act  the 
husband  and  wife  patch  it  up,  and  Ricciardi  comes  in 
just  in  time  to  hear  the  laughter  of  the  reconciled  pair  in 
the  next  room.  It  is  a  delightful  comedy  through  which, 
nevertheless,  runs  the  strain  of  bitterness  to  be  found  in 
all  his  work.  The  Unfaithful  Woman  is  never  really  un- 
faithful; she  is  too  cynical  and  ennuyee  for  that  —  all 
possible  lovers  bore  her.  She  returns  to  her  husband  be- 
cause, as  she  tells  him,  "  I  have  looked  and  looked  for  the 
right  man  and  in  spite  of  myself  I've  been  obliged  to 
choose  you."  [ 

His  other  important  comedy,  The  Triumph,  savors  of  the 
same  fatigued  disillusionment.  This  play  is  Bracco's 
counter-thrust  at  the  Norwegian  and  German  ideal  love, 
the  platonic  union  of  souls,  the  ideal  of  Hauptmann's 
terrible  psychological  tragedy  Lonely  Lives.  In  Haupt- 
mann's play  the  philosopher  Johannes  Vockerat,  married 
to  a  wife  he  feels  is  unworthy  of  him,  finds  true  friendship 
and  consolation  in  his  pupil,  Anna  Mahr.  They  are 
soul-mates  in  a  real  sense.  They  give  themselves  over 
to  philosophical  discussion  and  to  colloquies  in  which 
they  reconstruct  society,  where  their  "sister  souls"  come 
into  communion.    They  dream  of  a  union  higher  and 


ROBERTO   BRACCO  169 

nobler  than  marriage,  "a  new  union  between  men  and 
women,  in  which  the  sex  element  will  no  longer  take  the 
first  place  and  in  which  animal  will  no  longer  be  united 
to  animal  but  rather  human  being  to  human  being." 

Lucio  Seppi  in  The  Triumph  has  exactly  this  idea.  He 
feels  this  ideal  love,  he  thinks,  for  a  young  woman,  Nora, 
who  has  nursed  him  through  a  long  illness.  Nora  shares 
his  views,  and  the  two  live  together  in  perfect  purity; 
they  have  never  even  kissed ;  "  My  mouth  has  never  de- 
flowered her  mouth,"  says  Lucio.  A  good  ecclesiastic, 
a  believer  in  la  bonne  hi  naturelle,  proposing  to  cure  them, 
invites  them  to  spend  a  vacation  with  him  in  his  mountain 
parish. 

Here  during  the  warm  summer  nights,  with  the  perfume 
of  the  flowers  in  her  nostrils,  Nora  hears  the  voices  of 
Nature,  and  one  languorous  day  she  gives  herself  to  the 
painter  Giovanni,  forgetting  Lucio  and  the  "emptiness 
of  desire."  In  the  atrocious  pain  that  he  feels  at  her  de- 
fection Lucio  discovers  his  real  feeling,  jealousy;  little 
by  little  he  comes  not  only  to  excuse  but  even  to  approve 
Nora.  So  thoroughly  does  he  come  to  understand  her 
conduct  that  he  himself  tries  to  make  an  assignation  with 
the  niece  of  the  cure. 

The  play  has  been  called  "a  witty  long-nose  made  by 
voluptuous  Naples  at  Puritan  Christiania."  We  may 
well  believe  that  it  had  some  special  inspiration  because 
the  general  trend  of  Bracco's  work  is  in  the  other  direc- 
tion,— toward  idealism  and  continence  rather  than  toward 
voluptuousness  and  license.  His  characters  as  a  rule 
move  in  a  loftier  psychological  sphere  than  do  these 
persons  of  The  Triumph. 

These  two  are  his  best  cotoedies ;   a  word  may  how- 


170         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

ever  be  said  of  The  End  of  Love  and  The  Bitter  Fruit.  In 
the  former,  the  gallery  of  portraits  is  delicious  and  it 
echoes  the  peculiar  disillusionment  of  The  Unfaithftd 
Woman.  The  Bitter  Fruit  is  a  character  study  of  a  woman 
who  has  a  lover  much  younger  than  herself,  —  a  mere 
youth. 

Other  comedies  are  The  Honorable  Lover  {Una  degli 
onesti)  (1900),  played  in  New  York;  Concealed  Weapons 
{Ad  arme  corte) ;  and  Three  (an  adaptation  by  Gilbert 
Cannan)  also  played  in  English. 

The  Right  to  Live  {II  Diritto  di  vivere)  (1900)  is  Bracco's 
only  play  on  an  economic  question.  He  is  not  primarily 
a  social  thinker  and  seems  to  have  little  knowledge  of 
the  industrial  questions  of  the  day  and  little  appreciation 
of  their  merits.  Like  most  Latins  he  is  more  intimate 
with  the  individual  than  with  the  community;  the  field 
of  affairs  is  foreign  to  him,  and  the  drama  he  succeeds  in 
producing  is  empty,  scattered,  discursive  and  to  use  the 
fatal  word,  tiresome.  The  characters  are  as  ill-defined 
as  the  situations.  The  play  does  not  "bite,"  but  it 
is  full  of  rhetorical  diatribes  against  society,  capital,  the 
law,  wealth  and  the  family.  It  lacks  convincing  detail  and 
those  touches  of  actuality  which  might  have  made  it 
interesting  as  a  document  in  Italian  culture  history. 
Made  on  the  model  of  The  Weavers  it  lacks  the  force  be- 
cause it  lacks  the  sincerity  and  first-hand  knowledge  of 
the  German  masterpiece. 

To  find  Bracco  at  his  best  we  must  go  on  to  the  psycho- 
logical play  involving  a  personal  problem.  He  is  above 
all  the  student  and  the  doctor,  —  the  specialist  in  the 
feminine  soul.  Close  follower  as  he  is  of  the  Northern 
masters,  he  realizes  the  anomaly  of  woman's  place  in 


ROBERTO  BRACCO  171 

Italian  society.  The  battle  which  in  Scandinavia,  America 
and  England  has  already  been  fought  and  to  some  ex- 
tent won,  the  war  for  just  laws,  for  social  equality  of  the 
sexes,  is  still  to  be  fought  in  Italy.  Bracco,  bearing  as 
he  does  the  banner  of  individualism,  insisting  on  the 
inviolability  of  the  soul  and  the  essential  right  to  the  de- 
termination of  one's  destiny,  calls  for  these  privileges 
for  women.  The  protagonists  of  what  are  probably  his 
most  important  plays  are  women  who  are  either  the  vic- 
tims of  convention  or  rebels  against  it.  Catherina  Nemi 
in  Tragedies  of  the  Soul  {Tragedia  deW  anima)  (1899) 
and  Claudia  di  Montefranco  of  Maternity  {Matemita) 
(1903)  rebel  against  their  destiny;  Giulia  Artunni  of 
Phantasms  (I  Fantasmi)  (1906)  and  Teresah  Baldi  of 
The  Hidden  Spring  (La  Piccola  fonte)  (1905)  are  passive 
victims.  Life  reduces  itself  essentially  to  a  struggle  be- 
tween the  sexes  in  which  the  woman  is  invariably  the 
sufferer  and  the  victim.  Man  is  armed  with  all  the  rights 
of  the  law,  and  woman's  only  defense  or  weapon  is  her 
astuteness,  her  coquetry  and  her  powers  of  seduction. 
If  a  woman  is  too  great-souled  or  too  honorable  or  too 
virtuous  to  resort  to  this  means  of  making  life  tolerable, 
she  is  certain  to  perish,  a  sacrifice  to  the  pleasure  or  the 
power  of  her  oppressor. 

Caterina  in  the  first  play  has  in  a  moment  of  inex- 
plicable weakness  given  herself  to  a  man  she  does  not 
love.  From  this  her  sin  come  The  Tragedies  of  the  Soul, 
which  are  not  one  but  three-fold,  for  not  only  she  but  the 
two  men,  her  husband  and  her  lover,  are  the  tragic  victims 
of  circumstance  and  their  own  natures.  Her  transgression 
is  only  the  spark  which  sets  off  a  whole  train  of  disastrous 
events  and  in  which  each  situation  arises  inevitably  and 


172         THE   CONTEMPOEARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

inevitably  gives  rise  to  its  successor.  It  is  a  fine  psycho- 
logical study  of  sin  and  expiation.  There  is  a  simplicity, 
a  close-knit  texture,  a  feeling  of  inexorableness  about 
Tragedies  of  the  Soul  which  impress  us  as  do  only  the 
greatest  works  of  art. 

Claudia  di  Montefranco,  the  protagonist  of  Maternity, 
tries  to  save  her  unborn  child  from  her  unworthy  husband 
by  leaving  him,  so  that  she  may  bring  up  the  baby  her- 
self. But  tragic  circumstances  intervene.  The  child 
cannot  be  born,  and  rather  than  save  her  own  life  at  the 
expense  of  his,  she  resolves  that  they  shall  die  together. 
In  the  words  of  one  of  the  characters,  "  She  is  the  personifi- 
cation, powerful  and  radiant,  of  Maternity.  There  is 
centered  in  her  wonderful  monomania  all  the  instincts, 
the  rights,  the  aspirations,  the  passions,  the  jealousies 
and  the  divine  cupidity  of  a  hundred  mothers,  united  in 
her  alone."  It  is  inevitable  then,  that  she  should  suffer 
through  this,  her  essential  absorbing  instinct.  In  this 
play  Bracco  fails  to  drive  home  his  point.  We  are  moved 
but  not  convinced.  He  rouses  pity  but  not  terror  and 
for  this  reason  Maternity  fails  of  ultimate  dramatic  great- 
ness. 

Bracco  has  himself  interpreted  The  Hidden  Spring  for  \i3 
in  a  letter  to  the  critic  and  novelist  Matilda  Serao,  which 
is  prefixed  to  the  definitive  edition  of  the  play.  Teresah 
herself  is  the  Hidden  Spring,  the  fount  of  life  and  inspira- 
tion for  all  around  her.  In  particular  she  is  indispensable 
to  her  husband,  a  fashionable  poet,  frequenter  of  salons, 
who  never  realizes  what  she  has  meant  to  him  until,  when 
he  has  driven  her  mad  with  his  cruelty  and  neglect,  he 
finds  that  his  inspiration  is  dead.  Bracco  says,  "You 
have  written  that  the  moral  beauty  of  my  work  is  en- 


ROBERTO   BRACCO  173 

closed  in  this  woman's  soul.  You  have  been  able  to  see 
that  around  her  press  in  harmony  or  antithesis  all  the 
other  people  of  the  drama."  Though  the  play,  as  Bracco 
confesses,  conveys  a  moral  lesson,  he  has  avoided  the  pit- 
fall of  the  moralist,  and  has  made  his  characters  not  mere 
abstract  figures  of  vice  and  virtue,  but  beings  of  flesh  and 
blood.  The  dialogue  is  swift  and  graceful,  yet  pointed. 
There  is  the  utmost  economy  of  means,  yet  all  the  scenes 
a  faire  are  provided.  The  Hidden  Spring  shows  Bracco 
at  his  best. 

The  fourth  of  the  studies  of  women  is  Phantasms,  whose 
heroine  is  Giulia  Artunni.  She  is  the  wife  of  a  famous 
professor  who  is  dying  of  consumption.  Though  she 
has  been  a  model  wife,  he  is  unreasoningly  jealous  of  her, 
and  even  on  his  death  bed  makes  her  promise  to  remain 
true  to  him.  After  his  death,  though  she  loves  another 
man  and  is  loved  by  him,  she  cannot  fulfil  his  desires  and 
her  own.  Something  holds  her  back  —  Phantasms  —  the 
memory  of  her  husband,  of  the  old  life  with  him,  of  his 
jealousies  and  suspicions,  the  old  habits  and  accustomed 
reactions  that  her  married  life  had  embedded  in  her  soul 
too  deep  for  extraction.  The  dead  hand  has  never  re- 
laxed its  grip;  in  death  as  in  life  her  husband  subjects 
her  to  himself. 

These  four  plays  constitute  Bracco's  most  distinguished 
contribution  to  the  world's  great  repertory  of  problem 
dramas  and  the  real  core  of  his  dramatic  work.  He  has 
written  some  pure  tragedies  that  call  for  discussion. 
Masks  has  been  mentioned,  Don  Pietro  Caruso  (1895) 
might  be  a  chapter  from  Matilda  Serao's  Ventre  di  Napoli, 
so  full  is  it  of  tragic  reality.  Don  Caruso,  a  Neapolitan, 
jB.  sh/stfiT  lawyer^  .a  Jaanger-on  of  ths  law  courts,  a  go- 


174         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

between  for  corrupt  politicians,  does  all  the  dirty  work  for 
the  local  machine.  He  is  a  man  better  than  his  occupa- 
tion, tragi-comic,  "  who  keeps  in  his  worst  moments  a 
kind  of  chivalric  dignity,  who  possesses  every  courage  in 
the  face  of  every  shame  .  .  .  but  who  cannot  really 
work  for  his  living."  He  has  a  daughter,  the  apple  of  his 
eye,  a  lovely  creature,  for  whom  he  has  made  every  effort ; 
but  in  spite  of  his  care  she  has  fallen  in  love  and  has  given 
herself  to  her  lover,  her  father's  employer,  a  young  noble- 
man. When  the  father  discovers  the  situation  he  goes  to 
the  seducer  to  make  him  marry  the  girl.  But  "  One  does 
not  marry  Don  Pietro's  daughter."  The  seducer  offers  the 
girl  a  sum  of  money  and  she,  loving  him  devotedly,  is 
willing  to  consent  to  any  arrangement  he  proposes.  Then 
the  wretched  father  understands  that  he  has  nothing 
further  to  live  for,  the  lost  honor  and  happiness  of  his 
daughter  having  been  his  only  hope  and  his  only  dream. 
He  puts  a  revolver  in  his  pocket  and  goes  out,  humming 
a  bit  of  Verdi  in  his  rich  baritone.  The  peculiar  charm 
and  flavor  of  Naples  in  this  little  gem  is  entirely  lost 
in  this  or  any  analysis.  Don  Pietro  Caruso  was  played  in 
New  York  in  1914. 

Nights  of  Snow  {Notte  di  neve)  (1908)  was  also  played 
recently  in  America.  It  is  the  tragedy  of  the  woman  who 
once  fallen  sinks  to  the  utmost  depths  and  is  forced  to 
drain  the  last  drop  in  the  cup  of  humiliation. 

Of  the  longer  plays  of  pure  tragedy  the  best  is  Lost  in 
Darkness  (Sperduti  nel  buio)  (1902),  which  contains  some 
of  Bracco's  best  work,  particularly  in  the  first  and  third 
acts.  The  scene  is  again  Naples,  the  characters  Nea- 
politans of  the  lower  class.  The  play  opens  in  a  low 
cafe-concert  where  the  drovers,  artisans  and  poorer  work- 


ROBERTO   BRACCO  175 

men  congregate.  The  music  is  furnished  by  a  blind  fiddler, 
Nunzio,  a  stepson  of  the  proprietor.  Into  this  den  of 
iniquity  wanders  the  beautiful  orphan  girl  Paolina,  she 
too  one  of  the  submerged,  a  waif  who  knows  of  herself 
only  that  she  is  the  daughter  of  a  wealthy  father  who  aban- 
doned her  mother.  Bracco  knows  his  Naples,  so  that  the 
scene  in  the  cafe  is  life  itself;  the  characters  and  types 
and  the  bruyant  life  of  Naples  by  night  are  copied  from 
actuality. 

Presently  Paolina,  the  waif,  and  Nunzio,  the  blind 
fiddler,  strike  up  a  friendship,  and  resolve  to  go  away 
together.  "Are  you  ugly,  Paolina?"  he  asks.  "Yes," 
she  replies,  "Ugly."  He  trembles  with  delight,  for  he 
feels  that  if  she  had  been  pretty  she  would  the  more  easily 
fall  into  temptation  and  leave  him. 

The  second  act,  a  sort  of  ironic  interlude,  is  in  the  house 
of  the  Duke  of  Vallenza,  the  father  of  Paolina.  He  is 
dying  and  wants  to  find  his  illegitimate  daughter  and 
provide  for  her.  But  he  is  circumvented  by  his  mistress, 
Livia  Blanchart,  in  whose  hands  he  is  as  wax.  She  has 
no  desire  to  help  him,  wanting  only  to  keep  him  alive 
long  enough  to  acquire  his  property,  and  when  she  has 
accomplished  this  she  lets  him  die.  As  he  lies  moribund 
she  issues  invitations  for  a  dinner  party  to  celebrate  her 
good  fortune. 

The  last  act  returns  to  Paolina  and  Nunzio.  They  have 
been  living  together  in  perfect  purity.  But  Nunzio  fears 
for  her.  He  asks  her  if  she  ever  leaves  him  not  to  warn 
him,  but  only  to  blow  out  the  candle  before  the  image  of 
the  Virgin  that  he  may  know  merely  by  missing  the 
warmth  of  the  little  flame.  Paolina  has  been  tempted 
by  a  Megsera  with  the  old-new  argument :  Why  live  in 


176         THE   CONTEMPORA.RY  DRA.MA   OF  ITALY 

poverty  when  she  can  have  everything  merely  by  the  sale 
of  her  body.  She  gives  way  at  last  and  while  Nunzio 
is  practicing  a  plaintive  air  on  his  violin  she  tiptoes  in, 
dressed  in  finery  which  proclaims  only  too  clearly  her 
downfall.  Silently  crossing  to  the  image,  she  blows  out 
the  candle  and  as  silently  tiptoes  out  again.  The  sorrow- 
ful melody  goes  on. 

Like  the  hero  of  Bjornsen's  Beyond  Human  Power, 
Fiorenzo,  the  protagonist  of  The  Little  Saint  {II  piccolo 
santo)  (1908)  has  the  power  of  performing  cures  —  faith- 
cures,  perhaps  —  which  have  earned  him  the  title.  His 
is  a  powerful  mind  given  to  mysticism.  Disappointed 
in  love  he  has  turned  with  passionate  fervor  and  single- 
ness of  heart  to  the  work  of  the  church,  and  in  his  little 
country  parish  is  regarded  as  a  saint.  One  man  in  par- 
ticular, his  servant,  whose  life  he  has  saved,  adores  him. 

To  him  come  two  people,  his  brother  Giulio,  a  rou6, 
and  the  girl  Amita,  daughter  of  his  former  love.  He 
loves  in  her  what  he  had  loved  in  her  mother  and  acquires 
great  ascendancy  over  her.  The  two  young  people, 
Giulio  and  Amita,  fall  in  love  and  marry.  But  Amita, 
under  the  influence  of  her  teacher,  the  priest,  cannot  give 
herself  entirely,  and  the  young  pair  resolve  to  go  away 
where  she  may  be  free  of  this  ascetic  influence.  Don 
Fiorenzo  is  desperate,  seeing  in  their  leaving  him  the 
death  of  his  new  hopes  and  joys;  their  mere  presence 
had  given  him  happiness  and  he  felt  that  he  must  be  near 
to  guard  the  girl  against  a  possible  return  of  his  brother's 
old  habits.  The  devoted  servant  is  broken-hearted  at 
his  master's  sorrow.  The  young  pair  start  off,  but  have 
gone  but  a  little  way  when  a  distant  voice  calls  —  "  Help  I 
Oiulio  h;a3  fallen  pvpr  the  cliff."    The  s^jrvajit  juds  intp 


ROBERTO   BRACCO  177 

the  room  with  a  terrible  sneer  on  his  face.  Don  Fiorenzo 
divines  what  he  has  done.  "Murderer!"  he  screams  at 
the  wretch.  But  the  man  casts  himself  at  his  master's 
feet.     "  It  was  for  you  —  for  you." 

The  analysis  of  Don  Fiorenzo  like  the  analysis  of  the 
women  is  masterly  —  his  asceticism,  his  reborn  hope, 
his  adoration  of  his  old  love  in  Amita,  his  scorn  of  the 
dissolute  brother  to  whom  nevertheless  he  must  give  up 
his  beloved  Amita,  the  last  terrible  blow  revealing  to 
him  all  his  worst  impulses  executed  by  his  misguided 
devotee,  —  all  these  make  of  the  priest  a  fine  tragic  figure. 

One  more  serious  play  has  been  brought  out  since  The 
Little  Saint  —  Not  Even  a  Kiss  (Nemmeno  un  bacio)  (1913) 
another  story  of  illicit  and  unhappy  love,  which  adds 
nothing  to  Braccio's  reputation.  He  has  written  also  a 
"dialogue  in  three  acts".  The  Perfect  Love  {II  perfetto 
amore)  (1910),  a  serious  comedy  and  since  1914  four 
others  The  International  (L'  Intemazionale)  (1915)  The 
Distant  Lover  (U  amante  lontano)  (1916)  a  Sicilian  dialect 
piece  Consecrated  Eyes  (L'  Uocchie  cunzacrate)  (1916)  and 
a  war  play  The  Cradle  {La  Culla)  (1918). 

A  word  most  be  given  to  a  side  of  Bracco's  work  not 
often  discussed  by  the  critics,  —  the  true  comedies ;  not 
the  satirical  pieces  like  The  Unfaithful  Woman  but  gay 
little  sketches  bordering  on  the  farcical,  in  the  style  of 
Eugene  Labiche,  such  as :  Photography  without-  {Foio- 
grafia  senza-)  (1904)  a  piece  of  fooling  written  for  Tina  di 
Lorenzo  and  her  husband ;  Bo  not  unto  others  {Non  fare 
ad  altri)  (1886)  in  which  a  magistrate  attempting  to  con- 
found his  wife  by  confronting  her  with  the  photograph 
of  her  lover,  pulls  from  his  pocket  the  picture  of  their 
servant-maid   with   an  amorous  inscription   written  on 


178         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

it;  The  Traveling  Adventure  and  the  delightful  child's 
monologue,  The  Chatterer  {La  chiachierina) .  One  of  the 
Honest  Ones  (Uno  degli  onesti)  (1900)  has  been  acted 
in  America  as  The  Honorable  Lover.  His  pure  comedies 
are  few  in  number,  and  it  is  to  be  regretted  that  he  has 
not  given  us  many  more,  for  he  has  a  delicate  and  constant 
play  of  drollery  and  a  keen  eye  for  ironic  fun. 

The  work  of  Roberto  Bracco  leaves  a  final  impression 
of  profound  pessimism,  partly  because  he  has  chosen  for 
presentation  social  ills  for  which  no  remedy  has  yet  been 
found,  difficulties  which  are  as  yet  barely  on  the  road  to 
solution;  and  partly  because,  partaking  of  the  Italian 
temperament,  he  is  naturally  a  destructive  rather  than  a 
constructive  critic.  He  sees  women  as  having  mean 
opportunities,  stifled  in  a  narrow  social  sphere,  econom- 
ically enslaved,  victims  of  a  man-made  system;  kept 
in  the  status  of  children  by  false  education  and  lack  of 
responsibility ;  forced  to  trade  upon  their  only  commodity 

—  sex  —  so  that  in  their  partnership  with  men  they  can- 
not make  a  free  gift  of  their  love,  but  must  all  too  often 
barter  it  for  a  livelihood.  He  sees  men  as  caught  in  the 
cogs  of  the  world-machine,  driven  by  hostile  destiny, 
brotherhood  forgotten,  justice  dismissed  from  the  affairs 
of  men.  And  concerning  all  this  he  seems  only  to  say, 
"Is  it  not  a  pity?  Is  it  not  even  a  hopeless  tragedy?" 
and  there  he  stops,  lingering  in  the  pity-charity  stage 
of  social  consciousness.  The  only  atmosphere  possible 
for  the  plays  is  of  profound  pessimism. 

The  action  of  the  plays  is  of  the  inner  psychic  type. 
Things  do  not  happen  that  call  for  activity,  and  there  are 
no  situations  dramatic  in  the  theatrical  sense  of  the  word, 

—  which  implies  a  striking  amount  of  externality.    The 


ROBERTO   BRACCO  179 

story  is  invariably  simple,  to  be  told  in  a  few  words.  The 
inner  nature  and  inner  experiences  of  his  characters  are, 
however,  complex  and  interesting.  He  is  at  his  best  in 
conveying  emotional  crises.  He  has  a  technic  remarkably 
well  adapted  to  the  tracing  and  display  of  gradual  pro- 
gressive character  changes  —  from  the  elementary  psychic 
experience  of  Paolina  to  the  complicated  emotional  drama 
of  Don  Fiorenzo  he  passes  delicately  and  firmly. 

He  is  curiously  free  of  all  classes  of  society,  passing  up 
and  down  the  social  scale  in  his  characterizations.  He 
finds  his  people  in  the  underworld  of  Naples,  in  the  uni- 
versities, in  the  bourgeois  milieu  of  commerce,  in  the  upper 
aristocratic  circles,  and  with  his  keen  Italian  eye  discovers 
in  each  his  peculiarity,  his  mental  or  physical  tic  setting 
him  off  from  his  fellows. 

With  all  his  knowledge  of  stagecraft  he  falls  at  times 
into  the  old  pitfalls.  He  resorts  to  expedients  which  are 
now  considered  vieux  jeux,  —  overheard  conversation, 
gentlemen  in  ladies'  bedrooms  and  vice  versa,  hidings  be- 
hind curtains  and  things  of  like  nature.  Add  to  this  an 
occasional  passage  of  stilted  dialogue,  of  forced  and  un- 
natural expression,  and  you  have  the  sum  of  his  technical 
faults.  His  virtues  are  many.  Perhaps  the  greatest  of 
these  is  the  fine  sobriety  and  nakedness  of  his  style.  From 
the  moment  the  curtain  rises  the  action  is  under  way  and 
moves  without  pause,  without  side  track,  to  a  fine  cumu- 
lative effect  at  the  end.  He  thinks  of  his  plays  as  wholes. 
He  is  without  doubt  the  finest  technician  now  writing  for 
the  Italian  stage. 

Though  Bracco  is  the  best  of  the  Italian  prose  dramatists 
his  reputation  in  Italy  is  not  even  yet  commensurate  with 
his  merits.    Luigi  Tonelli  writes :  "  Our  greatest  dramatist, 


180         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

this  artist  who  has  always  labored  for  his  art,  far  from  all 
personal  interest  for  himself  or  for  his  managers,  is  to-day 
neglected.  While  the  stars  seek  only  to  fill  their  coflfers 
by  representing  the  most  lurid  and  stupid  things  produced 
by  France,  in  which  noted  actresses  get  themselves  ap- 
plauded by  showing  their  legs,  the  dramas  of  Roberto 
Bracco  are  forgotten,  and  perhaps  he  is  contented  that 
it  should  be  so.  To  see  the  filthy  French  atrocities  to- 
gether with  Tragedies  of  the  Soul,  with  Lost  in  the  Darkness, 
with  The  Hidden  Spring  would  be  repugnant  to  his  spirit." 

But  Bracco  has  had  considerable  reputation  outside 
of  Italy.  Dario  Niccodemi  is  the  only  dramatist  that  can 
rival  him  in  point  of  mere  numbers  of  plays  produced. 
Paris,  Vienna,  Berlin,  Madrid,  New  York,  London  and 
Budapest  have  all  seen  his  plays.  He  has  had  some  in- 
fluence in  Germany.  It  is  said  that  Hermann  Bahr  owes 
much  to  him.  In  English-speaking  countries  two  of  his 
dramas  have  had  commercial  success,  —  an  adaptation  by 
Gilbert  Cannan  called  Three,  played  in  London  in  1913, 
and  The  Countess  Coquette,  a  translation  of  The  Unfaithful 
Woman,  played  with  Alia  Nazimova  in  the  star  part  in 
America  in  1907. 

He  does  not  display  the  jewel-like  precision  of  d'An- 
nunzio,  the  gorgeous  scarlet  passion  of  Benelli,  the  wide 
humanity  of  Giacosa;  he  does  not  essay  any  of  these 
effects.  But  in  his  own  field,  the  field  of  the  drama  of 
ideas,  Roberto  Bracco  is  the  hope  of  Italy,  because,  though 
he  does  not  venture  to  offer  solutions,  as  indeed  it  does 
not  behoove  the  artist  to  do,  he  is  looking  forward  and 
not  backward,  he  is  trying  to  make  vocal  and  eloquent 
in  the  modern  theatre  the  fundamental  ideas  of  the 
modem  world. 


CHAPTER  VII 

Actors  and  Acting;   the  Popular  Theatre;   the 
Dialect  Theatre 

Nowhere  has  the  reciprocal  influence  of  the  dramatic 
and  the  histrionic  arts  —  the  Hterature  and  the  acting 
of  the  play  —  been  more  effectual  and  more  evident 
than  in  modern  Italy:  realistic  plays  have  demanded 
a  new  style  of  acting,  less  subservient  to  immemorial 
tradition,  more  sock  and  less  buskin,  and  the  new  acting 
has  in  its  turn  demanded  plays  more  faithful  to  life,  com- 
posed in  the  key  of  natural  human  intercourse.  To  get 
the  proper  perspective  for  the  study  of  this  matter,  one 
must  go  back  again  to  the  fifties,  the  time  when  the  star 
system  was  beginning  to  go  to  seed.  This  system  has 
operated  in  Italy,  precisely  as  it  operates  elsewhere; 
when  a  great  actor  had  surrounded  himself  with  a  troupe 
of  mediocre  or  poor  performers,  who  served  as  a  foil  to  his 
brightness,  things  went  well  enough  so  long  as  his  repertory 
contained  nothing  but  classical  tragedy,  costume  drama 
and  fantastic  comedy;  the  manoeuvres  of  the  minor 
actors  could  be  borne  with  patience  while  the  audience 
was  merely  waiting  for  the  entrance  of  the  star.  But  as 
soon  as  realistic  plays  of  contemporary  life  began  to  get  a 
hearing,  the  system  was  doomed.  The  star  cut  but  a  poor 
figure  when  he  exchanged  cloak  and  sword  for  frock  or 
morning  coat,  and  as  every  sentence  and  gesture  in  the 
new  plays  was  significant,  the  inexpert  acting  of   the 


182  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

subordinates  became  unbearable ;  and  when  a  company 
came  to  include  several  trained  actors,  the  old  hero-play 
became  impossible. 

It  was  a  company  of  French  actors  which  first  brought 
home  to  Italian  audiences  and  critics  the  shortcomings 
and  anachronisms  of  their  own  acting.  In  the  decade 
1850-1860  the  company  of  Meynardier  toured  the  Penin- 
sula with  a  repertory  of  Dumas  fils  and  Emile  Augier, 
then  the  last  word  in  the  realistic  drama.  It  was  a 
revelation  —  both  as  to  plays  and  play-acting.  For  the 
first  time  Italians  caught  a  glimpse  of  an  artistic  ensemble 
in  which  the  personality  of  each  actor  was  subordinated 
and  adapted  to  an  effective  whole. 

It  is  greatly  to  the  credit  of  Italian  actors  and  the 
Italian  theatre  in  general  that  they  had  the  openness  of 
mind  to  see  their  fault  and  the  courage  and  the  energy 
to  set  about  the  remedy.  The  press,  too,  set  to  w^ork  to 
stimulate  actors  and  actor-managers  to  encourage  and  to 
construct  a  vehicle  which  would  appeal  to  the  intellect 
as  well  as  to  the  emotions,  —  which  could,  in  other  words, 
suitably  produce  a  modern  play.  This  meant  the  eclipse 
of  the  star,  and  though  he  still  shines  with  a  mild  lustre  in 
certain  high  places  in  the  Italian  theatre,  he  represents  a 
regime  deeply  deprecated  by  all  modern  and  artistic 
actors. 

Inspired  by  the  French  acting,  Louis  Belloti  Bon  (1819- 
1883),  a  native  Italian  with  this  incongruously  French 
name,  organized  a  company  after  the  model  of  Meynar- 
dier's.  Italian  actors  responded  readily  to  the  call.  This 
company  Bon  trained  to  the  last  minute,  —  each  actor 
equally  important  with  the  others,  each  disciplined  as  an 
all-roimd  actor,  having  his  strong  points  of  course,  but 


ACTORS  AND   ACTING  183 

not  trained  out  of  emphasis.  For  this  perfected  instru- 
ment, this  theatrical  orchestra,  he  asked  a  suitable  vehicle 
from  the  playwrights.  In  response  Paolo  Ferrari  and 
Achille  Torelli  supplied  him  with  comedies  which  called 
for  realistic  acting,  from  which  the  star  was  eliminated. 
The  realistic  acting  called  for  more  and  more  realistic  plays 
—  the  new  plays  for  new  and  newly  organized  com- 
panies of  actors  —  and  behold,  the  new  movement  was 
under  way,  the  movement  which  reached  its  apogee  in 
Eleonora  Duse. 

The  old  tradition  in  acting  produced  some  veritable 
giants,  players  whose  genius  was  so  colossal  as  to  justify 
Italy's  boast  that  she  has  the  world's  greatest  histrionic 
tradition.  She  can  name  half  a  dozen  lofty  geniuses 
where  France  and  England  can  muster  but  two  or  three. 
While  most  of  Italy's  great  names  belong  to  the  old 
school,  there  are  none  of  them  that  rival  in  lustre  the 
name  of  Duse,  modern  of  the  moderns  and  the  greatest 
actress  of  modern  times. 

For  the  most  part,  Italian  actors  have  been  born  of 
theatrical  parents,  figli  delV  arte  as  they  are  called,  and 
they  are  prevailingly  of  one  artistic  family.  Gustavo 
Modena  (1803-1863)  first  set  himself  to  the  task  of  im- 
proving the  standard  of  acting  in  the  years  following  1840. 
He  was  the  Italian  Edmimd  Keene,  the  dominating 
theatrical  figure  of  his  time.  A  man  of  great  practical 
ability,  a  soldier  of  distinction,  a  patriot  of  the  New  Italy, 
he  introduced  into  his  art  his  ability  for  close  contact  with 
reality.  Italian  acting  had  been  for  generations  under 
the  influence  on  the  one  hand  of  the  lazzi  of  the  commedia 
deU'arte,  which  conceived  of  action  as  violent  activity,  and 
on  the  other  hand  of  classical  tragedy  in  the  grand  manner. 


184  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

The  actors  indulged  in  pathetic  exaggerations,  cries, 
gestures  of  despair,  overwhelming  any  true  tragedy  or 
real  comedy  in  a  flood  of  hopeless  mediocrity  of  action; 
interpretation  was  a  matter  of  routine  and  tradition. 
Modena  introduced  into  this  chaotic  acting  a  reform 
similar  to  that  of  Goldoni  in  comedy.  He  took  a  great 
stride  in  the  direction  of  naturalness.  In  action  he  dis- 
carded the  old  violence  to  substitute  moderation  and 
sobriety;  in  diction  substituted  speaking  for  chanting; 
he  tried  to  make  acting  true  to  life  and  at  the  same  time 
classical,  taking  truth  as  his  inspiration,  beauty  for  his 
end.  He  attempted  to  avoid  anachronisms  in  costuming 
and  bearing,  producing  a  sensation,  for  example,  when 
he  played  Saul  in  Alfieri's  play  of  that  name  in  the  cos- 
tume of  a  Hebrew  shepherd. 

Adelaide  Ristori  divides  with  Modena  the  renown  of  the 
Italian  stage  of  the  old  school.  Her  international  fame 
and  success  equaled  that  which  Sarah  Bernhardt  was  to 
attain  fifty  years  later.  Both  of  her  parents  were  actors. 
Born  in  1821,  she  made  her  debut  at  the  age  of  three 
months  and  nearly  broke  up  the  performance  with  her 
screaming.  Before  she  was  fifteen  she  was  playing  the 
grande  amoureuse  roles  in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare, 
Pellico,  Schiller  and  Hugo.  Soon  her  fame  had  leaped 
over  the  boundaries  of  her  native  land  and  she  achieved 
a  European  reputation  greater  than  that  of  any  other 
artist  of  her  generation.  She  worked  on  the  same  princi- 
ples as  did  Modena ;  sobriety,  never  exaggeration  or  loud 
cries  or  furious  gestures ;  never  rant,  no  substitution  of 
force  for  acting,  but  always  beauty,  balance,  the  true  inter- 
pretation of  her  part.  She  believed  firmly  in  the  nobility 
of  her  art,  insisting  always  that  the  actor  is  an  artist  and 


ACTORS  AND  ACTING  185 

as  such  is  responsible  for  the  observation  of  the  canons  of 
his  art  and  for  the  presentation  of  truth  and  beauty.  He 
must  be  intelligent,  well  read,  educated,  otherwise  he 
cannot  do  justice  to  the  great  works  of  the  art  he  is  called 
upon  to  interpret  and  to  mediate.  Critics  are  united  in 
praising  in  Ristori  just  this  marvelous  intelligent  culture 
which  gave  her  interpretation  its  superb  certainty. 
Bernard  Shaw,  who  saw  her  in  London,  has  no  words 
too  fervent  to  praise  her  acting.  Ristori  may  have  added 
nothing  to  the  theory  of  acting,  but  by  the  charm  of  her 
personality  and  the  weight  of  her  dramatic  scholarship 
she  verified  and  deepened  the  doctrines  of  the  new  realistic 
stage,  though  she  herself  belonged  to  the  old  tradition. 

Modena  had  two  great  pupils,  Tommaso  Salvini  (1829- 
1913),  a  noted  tragedian  who  dominated  the  Italian  stage 
for  half  a  century;  and  Ernesto  Rossi,  more  modern. 
Salvini  created  a  great  many  of  the  mid-century  rdles  in 
the  plays  of  Niccolini  and  of  Giacometti,  notably  his 
Corrado  in  Civil  Death,  and  in  many  other  tragedies. 
He  retained  the  grand  style,  tempered  a  bit  with  intelli- 
gence. He,  like  Ristori,  was  eminently  an  intelligent 
actor.  He  saw  Ristori  in  1844  and,  much  impressed  by 
her  learning  and  beauty,  resolved  as  far  as  possible  to 
make  her  manner  his.  Force  and  dignity  may  be  said  to 
have  been  characteristic  of  his  art.  He  was  at  his  best 
in  the  plays  of  Shakespeare  as  King  Lear,  Hamlet, 
Othello. 

But  La  Ristori  and  Salvini,  great  as  they  were,  were  on  a 
lateral  branch  of  the  living  organism  of  the  theatre ;  they 
were  the  end  of  an  evolution,  not  the  pushing  head  of  a 
growing  one.  Ernesto  Rossi,  on  the  other  hand,  though 
he  had  not  their  genius,  has  through  his  artistic  descend- 


186         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

ants  been  the  greatest  power  in  the  modern  theatre. 
He  is,  as  it  were,  the  grandfather  through  his  pupil  Cesare 
Rossi,  of  Duse,  of  Zacconi,  of  Flavio  Ando  and  many 
others  of  those  artists  who  are  associated  particularly 
with  the  modern  drama.  Cesare  Rossi  was  born  in 
1820  and  filled  roles  in  the  company  of  Ernesto  Rossi  and 
later  in  the  troupe  of  Louis  Belloti  Bon.  In  him  there 
is  the  meeting  of  the  two  great  forces  in  Italian  acting, 
—  the  old,  the  Modena-Ristori-Salvini-tradition,  and  the 
realistic  modernist  tradition  of  French  acting  which  Belloti 
Bon  was  introducing  into  Italy  at  the  time  Rossi  was  form- 
ing himself.  An  actor  of  no  small  powers  himself,  he  is 
more  famous  as  the  instructor  of  all  the  great  actors,  with 
the  remarkable  exception  of  Novelli.  With  Rossi's 
activities  and  influence  we  come  definitely  to  the  theatre 
of  our  own  day. 

r  And  the  supreme  outstanding  artist  of  the  modern 
Italian  stage,  who  has  already  been  acclaimed  in  this  dis- 
cussion, concerning  whom  it  is  difficult  to  speak  without 
superlatives,  in  the  judgment  of  most  critics  the  greatest 
actress  produced  by  and  producing  the  new  tradition,  is 
Eleonora  Duse.  Her  world  fame  rivals  and  even  dims 
that  of  Sarah  Bernhardt,  whom  as  an  exponent  of  the 
realistic  drama  she  far  surpasses.  Unlike  Bernhardt  she 
has  had  the  courage  and  the  originality  to  break  entirely 
with  the  old  rhetorical,  oratorical  school,  and  to  come  out 
completely  and  sincerely  as  a  modern.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  she  is  the  only  contemporary  actress  in  Italy  who 
has  given  this  proof  of  the  courage  of  her  convictions. 
All  the  others  have  lingering  shadows  of  the  old  style, 
they  display  reminiscences  of  Bernhardt,  of  Ristori ;  they 
smack  oftheir  provinces  and  their  provincial  training. 


ACTORS  AND  ACTING  187 

Not  SO  Duse.  Her  daring  intelligence  has  done  away  with 
limitations.  She  has  no  limitations  and  —  in  the  thing 
she  attempts  to  do  —  no  faults ;  beautiful  in  person, 
she  is  even  more  beautiful  in  spirit;  in  tragedy  and  in 
comedy,  in  drama  and  in  farce  she  is  equally  at  home, 
equally  tactful,  truthful,  illuminating,  penetrating,  —  in 
a  word,  the  great  artist. 

Duse  is  also  an  enfant  de  la  balle,  for  she  comes  of  a 
family  which  had  entertained  the  theatregoing  Italians 
for  three  generations.  Born  in  1859  in  a  railway  train 
when  her  parents  were  on  their  way  to  play  in  Venice, 
she  endured  every  hardship  in  her  youth.  Often,  so  the 
tale  goes,  she  did  not  have  enough  to  eat  and  never 
was  she  well  clothed.  But  she  was  frequenting  the  green 
room  and  learning  the  tongue  and  the  technic.  Her  first 
appearance  at  a  very  early  age  was  as  Cosette  in  Les 
Miserahles.  At  fifteen  she  made  her  oflBcial  debut  in  the 
company  of  Cesare  Rossi  as  Juliet  in  Romeo  and  Jidiet. 
The  performance  took  place  in  the  open-air  theatre  at 
Verona  and  was  a  delirious  success.  D'Annunzio  has 
consecrated  the  girl's  triumph  in  some  of  the  most  beauti- 
ful pages  of  //  Fuoco,  whose  heroine.  La  Foscarina,  is 
said  to  be  Duse.  She  soon  turned  from  romantic  to 
ultra-naturalistic  acting  and  made  her  national  reputa- 
tion in  Emile  Zola's  ghastly  tragedy  Ther^e  Raquin. 
With  this  she  broke  entirely  away  from  the  traditional 
histrionic  art  of  rhetoric  to  tread  the  then  almost  un- 
explored path  of  naked  truth.  With  her  triumph  the  art 
of  acting  in  Italy  celebrated  its  rebirth.  Since  that 
time  her  acting  has  but  ripened  and  matured.  She  has 
chosen  the  modern  drama  for  her  field,  —  the  plays  of 
Dumas  fits   and   Sudermann's  Heimat   being   her   best 


188         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

known  vehicles.  Of  recent  years  she  has  been  playing 
almost  entirely  in  the  dramas  of  D'Annunzio. 

A  turning  point  in  her  public  as  well  as  her  private  life 
was  her  acquaintance  with  D'Annunzio.  For  her  he  has 
written  perhaps  half  his  plays  and  she  has  acted  in 
many  more  of  them.  Her  best  parts  are  Silvia  in  La 
Gioconda,  Anna  in  The  Dead  City,  Mila  di  Codra  in  The 
Daughter  of  Jorio  and  Elena  Comnena  in  Glory.  Duse 
has  felt  that  in  playing  these  purely  Italian  plays  she  has 
been  promoting  a  true  Italian  theatre;  she  feels  also 
a  mission  as  poetic  propagandist.  She  is  carrying  the 
gospel  of  beauty  to  the  hungry  multitudes  who  are  too 
often  put  off  with  the  stone  of  realistic  cynicism  when 
they  are  begging  for  the  bread  of  true  inspiration.  So 
she  has  given  to  D'Annunzio  a  large  place  in  her  repertory 
though  his  plays  have  not  been  her  greatest  successes. 

Bernard  Shaw  saw  Duse  in  London  in  1895  when  she 
was  at  the  height  of  her  powers.  The  usually  cool 
and  analytic  critic  felt  that  in  her  he  had  seen  the  perfect 
interpreter.  His  analysis  of  her  talent  is  so  just  and 
fair  yet  so  enthusiastic  that  it  seems  likely  to  stand  as 
the  ultimate  estimate  of  her  worth.  Duse's  every  role, 
he  says,  is  a  separate  creation.  "When  she  comes  on  the 
stage  you  are  welcome  to  take  your  opera  glass  and  count 
whatever  lines  time  and  care  have  so  far  traced  on  her. 
They  are  the  credentials  of  her  humanity ;  and  she  knows 
better  than  to  obliterate  that  significant  handwriting 
beneath  a  layer  of  peach  bloom  from  the  chemist's.  .  .  . 
Duse  is  not  in  action  five  minutes  before  she  is  a  quarter 
of  a  century  ahead  of  the  handsomest  woman  in  the 
world.  .  .  .  Duse,  with  a  tremor  of  the  lip  which 
you  feel  rather  than  see  and  which  lasts  half  an  instant. 


ACTORS  AND  ACTING  189 

touches  you  straight  to  the  very  heart ;  and  there  is  not 
a  line  in  the  face  or  a  cold  tone  in  the  gray  shadow  which 
does  not  give  poignancy  to  that  tremor."  "Duse  pro- 
duces the  illusion  of  being  infinite  in  variety  of  beautiful 
pose  and  motion.  Every  idea,  every  shade  of  thought 
and  mood  expresses  itself  delicately  but  vividly  to  the 
eye ;  and  yet,  in  an  apparent  million  of  changes  and  in- 
flexions, it  is  impossible  to  catch  any  line  of  an  awkward 
angle,  or  any  strain  interfering  with  the  perfect  abandon- 
ment of  all  the  limbs  in  their  natural  gravitation  toward 
the  finest  grace.  She  is  ambidextrous  and  supple  like  a 
gymnast  or  a  panther;  only  the  multitude  of  ideas  that 
find  physical  expression  in  the  movements  are  all  of  that 
high  quality  which  marks  off  humanity  from  the  animals, 
and,  I  fear,  from  a  good  many  gymnasts.  When  it  is 
remembered  that  the  majority  of  tragic  actors  excel  only 
in  explosions  of  those  passions  which  are  common  to  man 
and  brute,  there  will  be  no  diflBculty  in  understanding 
the  indescribable  distinction  which  Duse's  acting  acquires 
from  the  fact  that  behind  every  stroke  of  it  there  is  a 
distinctly  human  idea.  ...  No  physical  charm  is  noble 
as  well  as  beautiful  unless  it  is  the  expression  of  moral 
charm,  and  it  is  because  Duse's  range  includes  these  high 
moral  notes,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  that  her  compass, 
extending  from  the  depths  of  a  mere  predatory  creature 
like  Claude's  wife  up  to  Marguerite  Gautier  at  her  kindest 
and  Magda  at  her  bravest,  so  immeasurably  dwarfs  the 
poor  octave  and  a  half  on  which  Sarah  Bernhardt  plays 
such  pretty  canzonets  and  stirring  marches." 

The  constant  strain  of  acting  the  poignant  even  violent 
emotions  of  D'Annunzio's  pieces  and  the  burden  of 
advancing  years  have  induced  in  the  great  actress  a  sen- 


190         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

sible  modification  of  her  style  in  the  last  few  years.  In- 
stead of  being  emotional,  tense,  nervous,  it  has  become 
more  and  more  static.  She  is  forced  to  spare  herself  the 
more  arduous  portrayals,  but  she  still  remains  in  Italian 
eyes  the  greatest  of  the  world's  actresses. 

Her  partner  in  many  theatrical  ventures  has  been  the 
actor  Ermete  Zacconi,  also  a  product  of  the  atelier  of 
Cesare  Rossi  and  a  figlio  delV  arte.  Like  Duse,  he  went  on 
the  stage  early  in  life  and  early  displayed  great  ability. 
Though  he  had  been  for  some  years  before  the  public,  he 
made  his  great  name  in  1891,  playing  in  De  Banville's 
Gringoire  and  above  all  in  Ibsen's  Ghosts.  The  great 
Norwegian  had  hitherto  been  known  only  by  A  Doll's 
House.  Zacconi  with  his  success  in  Ghosts  plunged  head 
over  heels  into  the  ultra-modern  movements  and  achieved 
extraordinary  fame.  Like  Duse,  Zacconi  is  more  at 
home  in  the  modern  roles.  Tolstoi,  Turgeniev  and  Haupt- 
mann  are  all  in  his  repertory,  which  contains  also  many 
modern  Italian  plays.  Bracco  is  represented  by  his  Don 
Pietro  Caruso;  Rovetta  by  The  Dishonest  Men;  Giacosa 
by  The  Stronger  and  Sad  Loves;  Testoni  by  //  Cardinale 
Lamhertini.  He  has  also  appeared  in  plays  by  Bovio, 
Butti,  Praga  and  D'Annunzio,  in  whose  La  Gioconda  and 
Ghry  Zacconi  has  taken  the  leading  man's  part. 

Zacconi  is  a  modernist;  he  excels  in  realistic  touches, 
in  matters  of  detail,  retaining  at  the  same  time  a  grasp 
on  the  fundamental  idea;  his  forte  is  those  parts  which 
depict  the  fermentation  of  modern  doubts  and  conflicts. 
Eugen  Zabel  says,  "He  is  the  pathologist  and  clinical 
student  of  modern  dramaturgy."  In  every  hero  he  dis- 
covers an  abnormal  being  in  whom  love  or  suffering  brin^ 
Jorth  newjDowers. 


ACTORS  AND   ACTING  191 

Zacconi's  only  rival  was  Ermete  Novelli,  who  was 
perhaps  among  the  men  the  brightest  star  in  the  Italian 
histrionic  firmament.  He  was  distinguished  among  his 
contemporaries  for  his  great  versatility.  He  played  the 
tragic  roles  of  Othello  and  Hamlet,  the  ironic  comedy  of 
Cossa's  Nero,  the  sentimental  Pere  Lebonnard,  and 
farcical  monologues  of  his  own  composition,  all  with  the 
same  astonishing  ease.  He  had  not  the  literary  insight  of 
Zacconi,  but  he  was  possessed  of  a  natural  histrionic 
endowment  surpassed  by  none. 

His  father  and  mother  also  were  theatrical  folk,  —  his 
mother  an  actress,  his  father  prompter  of  a  small  troupe. 
He  was  born  on  a  May  night  of  1851.  His  mother  died 
soon  after,  and  his  father,  a  busy  man,  let  the  little 
Ermete  grow  up  as  best  he  could  in  and  about  the  theatre. 
As  a  child  he  trained  his  histrionic  sense  with  a  theatre  of 
marionettes.  His  influential  teacher  was  Belloti  Bon, 
with  whom  he  remained  six  years,  so  that  he,  too,  united 
in  himself  the  old  and  the  new  acting,  —  that  of  the 
school  of  Modena,  Ristori  and  Salvini  with  that  of  the 
naturalists.  Under  Bon  Novelli  developed  into  the 
foremost  character  actor  of  his  generation. 

He  perfected  himself  first  in  comedy  roles  —  Plautus, 
Moliere  and  Goldoni  —  then  turned  to  drama,  Nero  in 
Cossa's  play,  Corrado  in  Civil  Death,  Father  Lebonnard 
in  Jean  Aicard's  play  of  that  name,  Louis  XI  in  Casimir 
Delavigne's  tragedy,  and  finally  the  star  Shakespearean 
parts,  —  Hamlet,  Othello,  Shylock.  More  than  Zacconi, 
Novelli  confined  himself  to  the  classical  repertory  of  the 
star  and  more,  too,  than  he  played  in  foreign  dramas. 
He  did  not  really  contribute  anything  to  the  stage  in 
.method  or  theory  but  he  added  another  name  to  tliose 


192         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

which  constitute  the  boast  of  the  Italian  theatre.  His 
attempt  to  establish  an  Italian  national  theatre  was  inter- 
esting though  unsuccessful.  He  appeared  in  nearly  every 
country  of  the  Occidental  world, — Spain,  Portugal,  France, 
Belgium,  England,  Germany,  Russia,  Austria,  Rumania, 
Greece,  Egypt  and  the  two  Americas. 

Novelli  had  seen  and  admired  in  France  the  fine  organ- 
ization of  the  Comedie  Fran9aise  which  frees  actors  and 
authors  alike  from  mere  commercialism,  which  establishes 
a  norm  of  acting  and  constitutes  a  rallying  point  for  the 
serious  drama.  He  proposed  to  establish  such  a  perma- 
nent theatre  in  Italy,  and  in  Rome  he  rented  a  house  to 
found  the  Italian  Maison  de  Moliere,  which  however  he 
appropriately  called  La  Casa  di  Goldoni.  It  opened  in 
1900,  but  notwithstanding  the  support  of  the  elite  and  the 
enthusiasm  and  self-sacrifice  of  its  talented  founder,  it  was 
short-lived.  The  Italian  public  was  not  yet  ready  for  a 
repertory  theatre,  and  first-rate  actors  were  too  hard  to  get. 

None  of  these,  the  greatest  actors  of  Italy,  is  so  particu- 
larly associated  with  the  modern  movement  as  some  of  their 
less  known  confreres.  First  in  this  list  must  stand  Flavio 
Ando  and  Tina  di  Lorenzo,  who  have  played  in  more 
contemporary  plays  than  any  other  pair  in  the  Peninsula. 
Ando  is  an  actor  of  distinction  and  power,  at  his  best  in 
the  modern  drama.  He  and  Tina  have  been  playing  in 
native  Italian  productions,  —  in  Bracco  and  Butti  as  well 
as  the  standard  French  repertory. 

It  would  be  impossible  to  mention  —  so  many  are  they 
—  all  the  modern  actors  of  merit,  some  however  that  must 
be  named  are :  Giovanni  Emanuel,  who  only  falls  short 
of  the  very  greatest;  Libero  Pilotto,  Claudio  Liegheb, 
Gustavo  Salvini,  son  of  the  famous  Salvini;    Ruggero 


ACTORS  AND  ACTING  193 

Ruggieri,  and  Virginio  Talli  —  they  of  the  generation  now 
passing.  Among  the  foremost  of  the  younger  men  are 
Alberto  Giovannini,  who  created  several  of  Sem  Benelli's 
r6Ies,  Ettore  Paladini,  the  mainstay  of  the  Teatro  Argen- 
tina, Armando  Falcone  and  Sichel. 

Of  the  actresses  those  whose  names  stand  out  are 
Virginia  Reiter,  Gina  Favre,  Lyda  Borelli,  Evelina  Paoli, 
Maria  Melato,  Olga  Gianni  (Novelli's  leading  lady)  and 
Dina  Galli,  all  now  a  little  beyond  the  zenith  of  their  fame. 
The  sisters  Irma  and  Emma  Grammatica  are  perhaps  the 
foremost  now  before  the  public. 

The  company  of  Sicilian  players  with  Giovanni  Grasso 
has  acted  in  nearly  all  the  important  centers  of  Europe 
and  America.  The  fame  of  this  enterprise  is  due  to  the 
genius  of  Grasso  and  the  Sicilian  dialect  plays  of  Verga 
and  Capuana.  Grasso's  acting  is  ultra-realistic ;  he  brings 
on  the  stage  the  Sicilian  temperament  with  all  its  brutality, 
bestiality,  fieriness,  amorousness,  religion,  —  human 
nature  in  the  raw.  Nevertheless  there  runs  through  his 
acting  a  certain  superhuman  quality,  a  sort  of  tragic 
mysticism  which  makes  the  performances  more  than  mere 
presentation  of  manners.  The  powerful  acting  of  the 
company  was  the  result  of  dramatic  intuition  and  imagina- 
tion, not  of  careful  training,  for  few  of  them  were  edu- 
cated people  and  they  gained  their  proficiency  only  by 
experience.  But  it  has  the  effectiveness  of  acting  that 
is  natural  and  springs  from  the  very  violence  of  passion. 
They  excel,  as  is  to  be  expected  from  these  Sicilian  peas- 
ants, in  the  plays  which  demand  violence,  exaggerated 
anger  and  lust  and  fear,  such  as  in  Verga's  Riisiic  Chivalry, 
Capuana's  Witchcraft,  Feudalism,  the  play  of  the  Spaniard 
Angelo  Guimera. 


194         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

Signer  Grasso  was  discovered  by  Ernesto  Rossi  and 
at  his  instigation  formed  the  company.  For  ten  years, 
1892-1902,  he  contented  himself  with  playing  in  Sicily, 
but  in  1903  he  started  his  world-tour  with  a  visit  to  Rome, 
where  he  quickly  became  the  fashion.  Since  then,  like 
all  great  Italian  actors,  Grasso  and  his  company  have 
spent  more  time  in  foreign  parts  than  in  their  native  land. 
Grasso  is  the  main  actor  and  manager  of  the  enterprise. 
His  best  parts  are  in  the  plays  already  named,  and  also 
as  Corrado  in  Giacometti's  Civil  Death,  the  hard-ridden 
war  horse  of  every  Italian  actor.  He  plays  it  with  a  crude 
force  and  virility  that  surpasses  even  Novelli.  He  has 
also  in  his  repertory  D'Annunzio  and  Shakespeare,  but 
these  productions  of  an  eminently  sophisticated  society 
are  beyond  or  rather  outside  his  limit,  being  too  in- 
tellectual and  lacking  the  primitive  type  of  emotion  that 
he  best  expresses. 

What,  in  summary,  may  one  say  of  the  Italian  style 
and  how  does  it  compare  with  other  modern  acting?  It 
must  be  admitted  that  the  ensemble  work  of  no  Italian 
company  is  equal  to  that  found  in  the  Theatre  de  I'CEuvre 
at  Paris,  in  Reinhardt's  Deutsches  Theatre,  or  in  Gran- 
ville Barker's  Duke  of  York's  venture.  The  minor  parts 
are  too  often  sacrificed  to  the  actor-manager's.  That  is 
the  curse  of  the  Italian  stage  as  it  is  of  the  American. 
True,  this  is  not  entirely  the  fault  of  the  manager;  it 
is  the  fault  of  a  system  in  which  there  are  few  long  runs, 
many  different  plays  in  repertory  and  little  time  for  the 
proper  training  of  subordinates.  The  parts  are  badly 
learned  if  learned  at  all  and  it  is  not  uncommon,  even  in 
the  high-class  companies,  to  have  the  prompter  read  through 
the  entire  performance  just  one  sentence  ahead  of  the  actor. 


ACTORS  AND   ACTING  195 

The  Italian,  however,  is  a  born  actor.  Eugen  Zabel 
speaks  of  the  beautiful  voices  and  the  expressive  gestures 
of  the  Italians.  The  eloquent  gesture  he  admires  most : 
they  seem  to  speak  with  their  whole  bodies,  they  are 
virtuosi  in  the  handling  of  their  arms,  hands,  even  legs 
and  feet  —  their  very  backs  are  endowed  with  speech. 
This  eloquence  and  variety  of  gesture  is  their  greatest 
merit ;  their  greatest  defect,  or  rather  an  aggressive  fault, 
is  one  which  springs  out  of  their  very  histrionism,  —  the 
tendency  to  rhetoric  and  oratory.  This  is  partly  the 
fault  of  the  actor  and  partly  that  of  the  author  who 
writes  plays  in  which  there  are  speeches  capable  of  be- 
ing ranted.  Nevertheless  the  actor  is  the  one  to  blame 
when  he  substitutes  force  for  legitimate  dramatic  effect. 
The  Italian  ideal  is  all  too  often  not  truth,  not  a  faith- 
ful presentation  of  character,  but  beauty  of  effect 
achieved,  if  need  be  at  the  expense  of  something  higher. 
The  Italian  loves  the  ring  and  roar  of  fine  words,  the 
music  of  a  lovely  voice,  the  grace  of  fine  gestures  and 
splendid  poses.  To  a  nation  immemorially  trained  in  the 
love  of  the  plastic  arts  he  offers  fine  lines  and  statuesque 
posture. 

This  should  not  convey  the  impression  that  the  Italian 
is  a  poor  actor ;  on  the  contrary  he  is  a  superb  actor,  but 
of  the  type  of  a  quarter  of  a  century  ago.  The  proof  is 
that  Italians  play  the  intellectual  roles,  Ibsen,  for  example, 
or  Hauptmann,  as  emotional  ones.  Duse  herself  con- 
demns the  Italian  theatre  for  this  tradition  in  acting. 
"To  save  the  theatre,  the  theatre  must  be  destroyed; 
the  actors  and  actresses  must  all  die  of  the  plague ;  they 
poison  the  air,  they  make  art  impossible."  This  is  of 
course  unduly  harsh  and  unduly  sweeping,  though  just 


196         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

in  its  intention.  The  Italians  must  renovate  their  theatri- 
cal ideal  to  save  their  drama. 

The  organization  of  the  amusement  business  in  Italy 
is  different  from  that  of  any  other  European  country, 
being  almost  exactly  similar  to  that  of  America.  Each 
star,  and  there  are  many,  has  his  own  company  and  travels 
about  from  city  to  city,  playing  a  week  or  a  month  at 
each.  Though  Rome  is  the  political  capital,  it  is  not  the 
artistic  center,  sharing  this  honor  with  Milan,  Bologna, 
Venice,  Genoa,  Turin,  Florence  and  Naples.  These 
cities  from  a  theatrical  point  of  view  are  equally  important. 
There  is  no  metropolitan  and  provincial  theatre;  a  capo 
comici  may  produce  a  play  for  the  first  time  in  any  one 
of  twenty  towns.  There  is  no  Paris,  London  or  New 
York. 

The  constant  moving  about  from  theatre  to  theatre 
necessitates  a  meagreness  of  mise-enscene  which  borders 
at  times  on  poverty.  The  sets  are  often  dilapidated,  the 
costumes  worn  and  the  furniture  in  an  advanced  state  of 
ricketyness.  Indeed  one  is  constantly  astonished  at  the 
indifference  to  scenic  illusion;  there  seems  to  be  little 
or  no  care  to  have  the  set  harmonize  with  the  drama; 
the  local  orchestra  will  play  a  Strauss  waltz  before  the 
curtain  goes  up  on  a  dire  tragedy ;  the  gilt  furniture  of  a 
fashionable  drawing-room  serves  for  the  presentation  of 
bourgeois  and  even  peasant  drama.  There  is  no  gemijt~ 
lichkeit  about  the  great  run  of  Italian  sets  and  theatres. 

There  are  something  like  a  hundred  and  fifty  theatrical 
companies  traveling  in  Italy  at  the  same  time.  This 
results  naturally  in  financial  and  artistic  competition. 
The  mere  matter  of  making  a  living  might  be  better  if 
there  were,  as  there  is  in  America,  a  theatrical  trust  to 


ACTORS  AND   ACTING  197 

furnish  financial  backing ;  but  each  capo  comici  is  his  own 
financier,  his  own  impresario,  stage  manager  and  leading 
actor.  The  Unione  dei  Capo  comici  organized  in  1808  is 
merely  a  mutual  protective  society,  an  actors'  union. 

The  organization  of  the  theatres,  traveling  companies 
with  insufficient  financial  backing,  actor-managers,  the 
star  system,  —  many  Italians  feel  that  these  things  are 
slowly  throttling  the  national  drama;  they  preclude  in 
countless  ways  a  realization  of  a  genuine  art  drama. 
These  people  feel  also  that  the  national  drama  needs 
cultivating  and  point  with  disgust  to  the  numbers  of 
French  plays  in  the  repertory.  There  seems  to  have  been 
in  Italy  no  serious  opposition  to  native  production,  only 
the  stars  have  gone  elsewhere  for  their  fat  parts  and  ef- 
fective plays;  there  has  been  no  obstacle  corresponding 
to  the  censorship  in  England;  the  audiences  are  as  a 
rule  ready  to  accept  anything  from  Plautus  to  Praga; 
they  are  now  willing  to  regard  the  playhouse  as  a  place 
for  the  study  of  serious  problems,  not  merely  as  an  even- 
ing's amusement.  The  predominance  of  companies  play- 
ing drama  over  those  playing  opera  or  variety  will  prove 
this.  No  !  The  difficulty  lies  not  with  the  public  but 
with  the  theatre  itself.  The  "star  system"  is  an  incubus 
which  stifles  attempts  at  artistic  freedom. 

To  cast  off  this  incubus  they  have  founded  permanent 
theatres,  or  at  least  companies  which  remain  in  one  city, 
for  none  of  them  has  been  permanent.  The  first  of  these 
attempts  was  at  Naples  as  early  as  1878,  —  a  short-lived 
experiment.  The  Compagnia  Carignano  of  Turin  lasted 
for  eight  years,  1877-1885,  and  helped  to  train  Duse.  A 
more  recent  attempt,  the  Teatro  delV  arte  in  Turin,  soon 
went  under.    In  1900  Novelli  made  his  ill-fated  attempt 


198         THE   CONTEMPORA.RY  DILA.MA   OP  ITALY 

to  found  the  Casa  de  Goldoni  at  the  Teatro  Valle  in  Rome. 
They  all  failed,  and  in  every  case  it  was  due  to  the  lack 
of  actors,  every  good  artist  being  at  the  head  of  his  own 
company  and  not  willing  to  give  up  his  permanent  and 
lucrative  position  to  accept  a  minor  post. 

There  have  been,  however,  in  the  last  ten  years  two 
fairly  successful  ventures  in  the  line  of  popular  theatres 
in  permanent  homes,  one  at  Milan  —  the  Teatro 
Manzoni,  the  other  at  Rome,  —  the  Compagnia  Stabile 
deir  Argentina.  The  Manzoni  is  probably  in  popular 
estimation  the  leading  prose  theatre  in  Italy.  The  prices 
are  about  half  those  of  an  ordinary  commercial  house. 
It  is  a  real  people's  theatre,  too,  for  the  audiences  are 
made  up  of  the  lower  classes,  the  popolo,  who  eat  and  read 
and  nurse  their  babies  in  true  Italian  fashion.  It  possesses 
one  or  two  first-rate  actors,  and  native  pieces  predominate, 
though  there  is  an  occasional  excursion  into  French  and 
German.    This  venture  is  famous  as  the  Teatro  del  popolo. 

The  Argerdina,  founded  in  1906,  is  perhaps  the  most 
successful  of  the  repertory  enterprises.  Signor  Eduardo 
Boutet,  its  manager,  in  a  speech  made  in  1908,  summarized 
the  hopes  and  purposes  of  the  venture.  He  proposed  to 
do  away  with  the  actor-manager  whose  desires  and  ne- 
cessities dictate  the  choice  of  plays;  and  to  substitute 
for  him  a  board  of  lay  members  to  control  and  direct  the 
selection  of  plays,  and  to  direct  the  manager  in  all  matters 
of  policy.  He  proposed,  in  the  second  place,  to  give  equal 
training  to  the  whole  cast,  in  order  to  secure  that  smooth- 
ness of  ensemble  so  desirable  and  so  rare.  He  proposed 
to  alter  the  proportion  of  emphasis  placed  upon  actor 
and  author,  putting  more  upon  the  author  so  that  he  may 
be  regarded  not  as  a  mere  purveyor  of  roles  but  a  co- 


ACTORS  AND   ACTING  199 

worker  in  one  great  artistic  endeavor.  And  last  he  fore- 
told that  the  stage  is  to  become  in  some  sense  a  great 
social  laboratory  where  the  problems  of  the  world  are 
analyzed  and  before  the  eyes  of  those  most  concerned 
with  them.  The  Argentina  has  struggled  to  carry  out 
many  of  the  details  of  this  noble  programme,  and  it  has 
the  merit  of  being  a  courageous  attempt  at  a  permanent 
or  short-run  theatre.  It  may  furthermore  claim  the 
suflBcient  glory  of  introducing  Sem  Benelli  to  the  world. 

Another  more  recent  establishment  is  the  Teatro  degli 
Avion  at  Rome,  formed  for  the  purpose  of  giving  young 
playwrights  an  opportunity  to  see  their  work.  This  has 
the  advantage  over  the  Argentina  of  having  a  new  and 
comfortable  building  at  its  disposal. 

In  addition  to  the  permanent  professional  establish- 
ments there  are  many  prosperous  amateur  societies ;  few 
villages  are  too  small  to  have  a  Teatro  Sociale  in  which 
semi-professionals  and  amateurs  act  together.  The  plays 
they  act  may  be  and  often  are  the  worst  imaginable,  but 
the  writer  remembers  having  seen  in  one  case  Ghosts  in  a 
little  mountain  village  of  Northern  Italy  done  by  one  of 
these  amateur  companies.  The  great  cities  have  their 
ambitious  and  successful  organizations  also,  like  the 
Philodrammatici  of  Milan  and  the  famous  Florentine 
and  Roman  societies. 

Of  recent  years  there  have  sprung  up  theatres  which 
promise  to  become  the  most  popular  spectacles  in  the 
country,  even  to  the  detriment  of  vaudeville.  These  are 
the  Teairi  a  sezioni  or  Teatri  minimi.  Just  as  in  Spanish 
theatres  the  evening  is  devoted  to  a  number  of  one-act 
plays  and  zarzuelas,  so  in  the  Teatro  a  sezioni  as  many  as 
five  or  six  plays  may  be  given  in  a  night,  each  one  lasting 


200         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

say  three  quarters  of  an  hour  with  just  enough  time  left 
between  them  to  shift  the  scenery.  The  theatre  opens 
about  six-thirty  or  seven  o'clock,  and  the  last  section  be- 
gins about  eleven.  Each  section  may  be  viewed  for  the 
modest  price  of  half  a  lira;  one  may  go  for  the  whole 
evening  or  for  only  one  play ;  the  tickets  are  rarely  sold 
beforehand ;  in  short,  in  point  of  convenience  the  Teatro 
minimo  is  unexcelled.  The  pieces  given  are  not  the 
Spanish  zarzuelas  (musical  comedies)  but  usually  short 
plays,  —  farcical,  serious  or  tragic.  Good  one-acters  are 
easy  to  come  by,  for  nearly  all  first-rate  contemporary 
dramatists  have  produced  them.  The  actors  are  as  a 
rule  competent.  The  absolute  freedom  of  attendance, 
the  relative  certainty  of  getting  at  least  one  good  play 
in  the  evening,  the  informality,  the  cheapness  of  the  seats 
and  convenience  of  the  hours  make  the  Teatro  a  sezioni  a 
hope  for  the  serious  drama,  and  a  weapon  with  which  to 
combat  the  cinematograph  and  the  variety  show. 

The  Italians  have  for  a  century  stimulated  national 
interest  in  the  drama  by  means  of  various  contests  with 
prizes  offered  by  the  government,  by  municipalities,  by 
societies  and  newspapers.  Some  of  the  finest  work  of 
the  modern  movement  has  been  called  out  by  these  con- 
tests. All  the  more  recent  men  have  written  one  or  more 
prize-winners.  One  of  the  most  famous  of  the  dramatic 
prize  contests  is  that  of  Turin,  though  Florence  and  Rome 
also  conduct  them.  These  dramatic  expositions  occur 
several  times  a  year  and  the  number  of  plays  and  con- 
testants is  appalling.  Whatever  one  may  think  of  the 
mere  adventitiousness  of  this  method  of  fostering  drama, 
Italy  has  been  lucky  in  having  so  many  successful  play- 
wrights take  part  in  the  contests. 


ACTORS  AND  ACTING  201 

The  most  characteristically  Italian  kind  of  drama  is 
undoubtedly  that  which  appeals  to  the  people  themselves, 
the  uneducated  classes  in  whom  the  love  of  the  theatre  is 
imalloyed,  who  are  concerned  with  being  entertained  and 
not  elevated.  This  drama  must  be  considered  under 
two  heads  —  first  that  most  Italian  of  the  arts,  the  theatre 
with  masks  and  its  derivatives,  and  second  the  dialect 
theatre  which  has  reached  an  extraordinary  stage  of  de- 
velopment. 

The  commedia  delV  arte  has  its  origins  in  the  remotest 
past  of  Italy  and  came  into  full  flower  in  the  Renaissance. 
Other  names  for  it  are  Commedia  improwisa,  and  commedia 
a  maschera,  or  mask  comedy  It  reached  its  apogee  in 
the  eighteenth  century.  In  the  commedia  delV  arte  the 
dialogue  was  not  written  at  all,  but  a  scenario  was  sup- 
plied for  each  play  and  the  actors  made  up  the  dialogue 
as  the  action  proceeded.  The  course  of  the  intrigue  was 
interrupted  by  lazzi  where  the  buffoons  made  sport  for 
the  groundlings.  Out  of  this  grew  the  mask  comedy  in 
which  the  action  is  carried  on  chiefly  by  certain  typical 
stereotyped  figures  in  masks  speaking  certain  local  dialects. 
This  is  the  form  in  which  it  has  come  down  to  modern 
times  in  the  theatre  of  the  basso  popolo. 

The  characters  of  the  mask  comedy  are  divided  into  two 
classes,  —  the  masked  and  unmasked  r61es.  The  im- 
portant standard  masks  are  Pantalone,  a  Venetian  mer- 
chant ;  II  Dottore,  usually  a  physician  or  a  lawyer  from 
Bologna;  Arlecchino  and  Brighella,  blundering  foolish 
servants  from  Bergamo ;  Pulcinella,  a  rogue  from  Naples ; 
Coviello,  from  Calabria.  The  female  masks  are  the 
soubrette  Colombina,  Rosetta,  Smeraldina,  Diamantina, 
whatever  name  she  may  go  by  —  and  her  rival,  the  widow 


202         THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

Pasquella.  Each  character  speaks  his  own  dialect,  wears 
his  own  costume  and  has  his  own  peculiarities,  all  of  which 
have  remained  essentially  unchanged  even  to  our  own  day. 
The  characters  without  masks  were  the  lovers,  who  spoke 
in  Tuscan,  and  others  according  to  the  needs  of  the  in- 
trigue. These  personages  correspond  with  amazing 
nearness  to  the  stock  characters  of  the  low  burlesque 
stage  in  America,  —  the  Irishman,  the  Jew,  the  German, 
the  negro.  Each  Italian  city  now  retains  its  favorite 
comic  mask.  In  Florence  it  is  Stentorello ;  in  Naples  it  is 
Pulcinella ;  in  Sicily  it  is  Pasquino.  The  Florentine  and 
Neapolitan  masks  are  nowadays  the  most  important  ones, 
indeed  the  only  ones  worthy  of  being  considered  in  a  his- 
tory of  the  modern  drama,  the  others  being  only  locally 
important. 

Stentorello  always  plays  in  Florentine,  for  the  most 
part  in  adaptations.  They  are  usually  burlesque  or 
parody,  full  of  horse-play  and  jokes  in  more  or  less 
questionable  taste. 

It  is  in  Naples  that  the  comedy  of  masks  has  had  the 
most  popularity.  Here  Pulcinella  has  maintained  a 
theatre  all  of  his  own  since  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  and  has  played  to  crowded  houses  at  the  San 
Carlino  and  the  Teatro  Nuovo.  His  history  has  been 
written  in  detail  by  the  Neapolitan  dramatist  and  poet, 
Salvatore  di  Giacomo. 

Pulcinella  has  been  traced  back  to  Roman  times.  He  is 
perhaps  the  combination  of  two  characters  from  Roman 
comedy,  Maccus  and  Bucco.  He  wears  nowadays  his 
traditional  costume  just  as  it  has  always  been,  —  a  mask 
with  a  hooked  nose,  a  slight  hump  on  his  back,  and  pro- 
tuberant stomach  in  front ;  he  wears  a  loose  white  costume 


ACTORS  AND   ACTING  203 

with  large  trousers,  a  smock  belted  in  at  the  waist  and  a 
pointed  cloth  hat.  Pulcinella  is  in  a  sense  the  embodiment 
of  the  Neapolitan  spirit,  —  its  wit,  its  gaminerie,  its  base- 
ness, its  lofty  flights.  He  plays  for  the  most  part  as  a 
servant  whose  stupidity  gets  himself  and  his  master  into 
trouble,  and  whose  good  luck  gets  them  out  again. 

Pulcinella's  home  in  Naples  up  to  1884  was  the  San 
Carlino  Theatre,  where  some  of  the  famous  actors  in  the 
part  were  Francesco  Cerlone  (1720-1812),  Filippo  Cam- 
marano  (1765-1842)  and  Salvatore  Petito,  who  occupied 
the  scene  for  more  than  thirty  years  in  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century.  The  last  of  the  famous  San  Carlino 
Pulcinellas  was  Pasquale  Altavilla,  also  a  playwright, 
whose  productions  are  still  in  the  repertory.  More  than 
sixty  plays  of  his  have  been  printed.  The  last  writer  for 
the  San  Carlino  was  a  son  of  Salvatore  Petito,  Antonio, 
who  died  in  1876,  and  who  has  been  immortalized  by  the 
De  Goncourt  brothers  in  their  Italian  Letters. 

The  Pulcinella  theatre  of  to-day  is  the  Teatro  Nuovo, 
where  Giuseppe  di  Martino  held  the  main  place  until  his 
death  a  few  years  ago.  He  was  given  to  varying  the  plays 
of  Petito  and  Altavilla  with  French  farces,  mostly  adapta- 
tions from  Labiche.  Such  plays  are  distorted  until  they 
are  scarcely  recognizable  to  make  a  part  for  Pulcinella 
and  to  give  them  an  appeal  to  the  Neapolitan.  Another 
favorite  form  of  play  is  the  revue  of  the  year,  which  is  put 
on  in  December.  It  is  like  a  revue  on  the  Boulevards, 
in  Piccadilly  or  on  Broadway,  only  that  the  events  satbized 
are  purely  local. 

The  original  plays  written  for  Di  Martino  are  legion 
and  the  names  of  a  few  must  suflBce  to  suggest  their  char- 
acter and   atmosphere:    The  Eruption  of  Vesuvitis,  or 


204         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

Pvlcinella  and  Picchio  frightened  by  an  earthquake  (the 
longer  the  title  the  better  it  pleases).  A  Mutilated  Devil 
is  the  work  of  Antonio  Petito.  The  Devil  returning  to 
earth  to  avenge  himself  for  the  mutilation  of  his  portrait 
by  a  beautiful  young  woman,  performs  terrific  wonders, 
causing  all  manner  of  comic  dismay  and  astonishment. 
Another  play  out  of  the  heart  of  Naples  is  On  tJie  Second 
and  Third  Floors  in  tlie  Healthy  Quarter,  with  Pulcinella  as 
a  generous  servant.  In  Naples,  it  must  be  remembered, 
the  same  house  may  contain  families  of  all  the  social 
grades,  —  the  higher  you  go  the  more  expensive  the  apart- 
ments. Still  another  is  Christrruis  Eve,  which  shows  how 
a  poor  family  after  many  vicissitudes  acquires  a  great 
feast  for  Christmas  day. 

Naples,  besides  the  theatre  of  masks,  boasts  of  another 
people's  theatre  still  more  popular,  —  the  Teatro  Fioren- 
tini,  founded  and  maintained  by  Eduardo  Scarpetta 
(Cavaliere  della  Corona  d'  Italia),  co-dictator  with  Ma- 
tilda Serao  of  his  native  city.  Scarpetta  reacted  against 
the  rule  of  Pulcinella  and  attempted  to  substitute  for 
him  a  character  of  his  own  creation,  Don  Felice  Scioscia- 
mocca.  Scarpetta  opened  his  own  theatre  about  1880 
and  for  years  was  the  rage,  playing  to  crowded  houses 
every  night.  He  has  written  a  series  of  fascinating 
memoirs  narrating  his  career.  Scarpetta  throws  over- 
board all  the  Neapolitan  baggage  of  the  Nuovo  and  frankly 
makes  up  his  entertainments  with  adaptations  from  the 
French.  Again  Labiche  and  the  comedians  and  vaude- 
villistes  of  the  Boulevards  supply  the  material.  Each 
play  is  adapted  to  contain  a  part  for  Don  Felice,  who 
is  a  simple-minded  and  timid  young  man.  Eduardo 
Scarpetta  has  been  recently  succeeded  in  the  role  by  his 


ACTORS  AND   ACTING  205 

son,  Vincenzo  Scarpetta,  who  promises  to  inherit  his 
father's  popularity. 

In  addition  to  the  comedy  of  masks  and  its  derivatives, 
there  exists  a  more  serious  movement  in  the  dialect  drama 
which  has  produced  many  writers  worthy  of  note  since 
the  middle  of  the  last  century.  In  order  to  understand 
how  it  is  that  a  drama  in  dialect  can  flourish  in  Italy, 
one  must  bear  in  mind  that,  though  the  Peninsula  has 
been  a  political  unit  since  1860,  spiritually  it  has  remained 
a  group  of  provinces  kept  apart  by  differences  of  speech, 
custom  and  psychology.  ■  Each  province  has  its  local 
interest,  and  though  the  study  of  Italian  in  the  schools 
is  rapidly  breaking  down  linguistic  barriers,  each  has  its 
own  language  often  unintelligible  in  another  province. 
Not  only  in  language  but  also  in  character  is  Rome  dif- 
ferent from  Bologna,  Milan,  Naples  and  Palermo.  Re- 
gional prejudices  and  regional  interest  are  a  force  here  as 
nowhere  else  in  the  world.  It  is  easy  to  comprehend  then 
that  the  regional  drama  will  exist  and  flourish. 

Piedmont  was  the  first  to  achieve  a  distinguished  drama, 
the  work  of  the  eminent  journalist  turned  poet,  Vittorio 
Bersezio  (1830-1900),  author  of  many  plays.  He  is 
famous  above  all  for  his  Sorrows  of  Mr.  Travel  {Le  miserie 
del  Sig.  Travetti)  (1863),  a  picture  of  an  essentially  Italian 
and  Piedmontese  interior,  painted  with  the  delicacy  of 
touch  and  brilliant  color  of  a  Vermeer.  The  charm  of 
this  comedy  is  lost  in  analysis ;  it  lies  in  the  verity,  human 
and  Italian,  of  Travet,  in  the  exactitude  of  the  details, 
and  in  the  reality  of  the  circumstances  of  Turinese  life. 
The  Sorrows  of  Mr.  Travet  has  enjoyed  an  immense  popu- 
larity in  Italy,  where  it  has  been  translated  not  only  into 
Italian  but  into  most  of  the  other  dialects.    Benini  plays 


206         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

it  in  Venetian,  Novelli  in  Florentine.  Bersezio  made  a 
sequel  to  this,  his  best  known  play,  called  The  Joys  of 
Mr.  Travel  (Le  prosperita  del  Sig.  Travetti) ;  also  A  Soap- 
bubble  (Una  bolla  di  sapone)  (1863),  and  many  other  works 
of  minor  importance. 

In  Venice,  too,  the  dialect  theatre  has  flourished  and 
has  attained  considerable  literary  merit  with  Riccardo 
Selvatico  (1850-1900)  and  above  all  with  Giacinto  Gallina 
(1852-1902).  The  tradition  of  Venetian  comedy  has 
been  almost  unbroken  since  Goldoni  and  Gozzi. 

Giacinto  Gallina  began  his  career  as  a  cello  player  in 
a  theatre  orchestra,  but  finding  that  his  vocation  lay 
elsewhere,  began  writing  for  the  stage.  He  tried  himself 
out  on  drama  and  tragedies,  but  struck  his  vein  at  last 
in  dialect  comedy.  His  is  distinctly  the  Goldonian 
manner,  being  at  times  even  too  closely  inspired  by  his 
illustrious  fellow  townsman.  Like  Goldoni,  Gallina  does 
not  regard  life  under  a  dark  glass  or  a  microscope,  but 
rather  through  the  rosy  spectacles  of  a  comic  optimism. 
He  corrects  mistakes  and  weaknesses  not  by  irony  or 
violence  but  by  persuasion  as  in  yl  Ruined  Family  {Una 
famiglia  rovinata).  The  Mother  never  Dies  {La  mamma 
non  muore)  (1879)  expresses  Gallina's  idea  that  the  mother 
is  the  center  and  soul  of  the  home,  and  that,  lacking  her, 
the  family  is  sure  to  disintegrate,  and  most  famous  of  all 
The  Eyes  of  the  Heart  {Gli  occhi  del  cuore),  whose  theme 
is  that  the  eyes  of  the  heart  can  perceive  even  when  the 
sight  of  the  eyes  is  destroyed. 

The  Venetians  have  inscribed  on  Gallina's  tomb,  "He 
was  the  man  who  received  the  soul  of  the  Venetian  people 
into  his  own  great  ingenuous  soul,  and  has  showed  it, 
living,  in  his  plays  which  were  inspired  by  genius  and 


ACTORS   AND   ACTING  207 

goodness."  Allowing  for  the  natural  hyperbole  of  an 
epitaph,  he  states  the  case  as  his  fellow  townsmen  saw  it. 

It  would  be  ungrateful  to  leave  the  Venetian  dialect 
theatre  without  mentioning  Ferruccio  Benini,  an  actor- 
manager  of  distinction,  who  plays  the  larger  proportion 
of  his  repertory  in  Venetian,  who  has  contributed  much 
to  the  modem  success  of  this  dialect  drama. 

MUan  has  produced  in  the  actor-author,  Edoardo 
Ferravilla  (1850-1915),  a  comic  actor  of  the  largest  caliber 
and  a  comic  writer  of  no  mean  gift.  By  sheer  force  of 
personality  he  has  made  the  theatre  of  his  own  dialect 
a  power  in  Italy.  He  has  written  for  the  most  part  the 
plays  he  appears  in,  presenting  types  which  he  has  ob- 
served; he  reveals  himself  rather,  as  a  student  of  char- 
acter than  as  caricaturist.  Ferravilla's  theatrical  war 
horse,  his  favorite  mount,  has  been  A  Husband  for  a  Joke 
(JJn  spos  per  rid). 

Another  Milanese  writer  is  Carlo  Bertolazzi  (1870-  ), 
who  has  given  popular  pictures  in  the  dialect  of  the 
lower  classes  of  Milan,  painted  in  the  darkest  colors. 
The  best  known  of  these  are  In  the  Pawn-^hop  {Al 
monte  di  pietaa);  Our  Milan  (Nosf  Milan);  Poor 
People  (La  povera  genie)  and  La  Gibigianna.  But  the 
patois,  being  a  sort  of  dialect  of  a  dialect,  is  not 
adapted  to  serious  emotions  or  the  discussion  of 
problems.  Bertolazzi  is  better  in  his  Italian  plays  The 
Egoist  {L'Egoista)  (1901),  a  study  of  a  man  devoted  only 
to  his  own  base  interests ;  The  Palace  of  Sleep  (La  casa 
del  sonno)  (1902),  and  Lulu  which  presents  with  extraordi- 
nary vivacity  a  woman  who  is  constitutionally  unable  to 
remain  faithful  to  the  man  she  loves  most.  Others  of  his 
plays  are  Lorenzo  and  his  Lawyer  {Lorenzo  e  il  sua  awocato) 


208  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

(1906),  Festival  Days  (7  giomi  di  festa)  (1908)  and  Heart 
Shadows  {Ombre  del  cuore)  (1909). 

Naples,  with  strong  local  tradition  such  as  it  has,  was 
bound  to  maintain  a  serious  drama  of  its  own.  The  works 
of  Cognetti  have  already  been  mentioned  as  being  in 
the  Verist  movement  side  by  side  with  Verga  and  Capu- 
ana.  His  Santa  Lucia  and  Basso  Porto  deal  with  Neapoli- 
tan life.  So  also  The  Foundation  of  the  Camorra  at 
Naples  of  Edoardo  ISIinichini  deals  with  Naples  in  1739, 
when  the  terrible  secret  society  was  organized  there.  As 
might  be  expected,  it  is  the  most  violent  sort  of  melodrama. 
De  Tommasi  and  Storace  wrote  others  in  the  same  vein. 
Most  of  these  melodramas  are  concerned  in  one  way  or 
another  with  the  Camorra,  and  most  are  of  interminable 
length,  —  six,  even  seven  acts,  creaking  and  groaning 
with  the  weight  of  passion  and  plot  they  have  to  carry. 

If  a  Neapolitan  were  asked  who  is  the  most  popular 
author  of  Italy,  he  would  name  first  Matilda  Serao,  then 
Salvatore  di  Giacomo.  This  latter  versatile  writer  has 
taken  part  in  nearly  every  side  of  the  literary  life  of  his 
home  city  for  the  last  quarter  century.  He  is  journalist* 
novelist,  chronicler  —  he  wrote  a  history  of  the  San 
Carlino  theatre  —  poet  of  great  distinction,  and  finally 
dramatist.  "He  writes  of  the  irremediable  sadness  of 
old  Naples  with  a  tenderness  that  is  real  in  Italy  .  .  .  but 
would  be  sentimentality  in  America."  His  plays  are  Low 
Life  {Mala  Vita),  composed  in  collaboration  with  Cognetti, 
A  San  Francesco,  'Omese  Mariano,  a  delicate  sentimental 
one-act  drama,  and  finally  the  tragedy  Asaunta  Spina, 
perhaps  the  best  of  his  plays. 

Di  Giacomo  knows  his  native  city  as  no  one  else  does, 
acquainted  as  he  is  with  all  the  popular  characters,  the 


ACTORS  AND  ACTING  209 

beggars,  the  priests,  the  prostitutes,  the  politicians  of  the 
Quarters,  knowing  every  turn  in  every  street,  seeing  in  the 
houses  themselves  old  and  familiar  friends;  he  loves  the 
smells  and  the  noises  of  the  most  humanly  smelly  and 
noisy  of  cities.  All  his  sensations  collected  in  his  native 
haimts  he  transfers  in  toto  to  the  boards.  Often  as  not  the 
characters  in  his  plays  are  real  people  he  has  known  as  a 
young  man  frequenter  of  Naples;  cabbies,  workmen, 
facchini,  camorrists,  street-walkers.  Di  Giacomo's  work 
represents  the  dialect  play  at  its  best. 

Though  the  drama  in  dialect  sometimes  attains  a  con- 
siderable degree  of  merit,  the  trend  of  the  modern  theatre 
in  Italy  is  entirely  away  from  localization.  The  various 
portions  of  the  kingdom  are  being  more  and  more  welded 
into  a  homogeneous  community  by  the  army  and  the 
schools.  The  increasing  wealth  of  the  country,  the  greater 
ease  of  intercommunication,  the  interest  in  national 
politics  are  rapidly  taking  a  Sicilian's  mind  off  his  own 
affairs,  a  Florentine  or  Milanese  out  of  his  own  circle. 
The  movement  of  recent  years  for  local  color  has  had  more 
the  effect  of  making  real  the  details  of  works  written  in 
Italian  than  of  encouraging  dialect  writing.  The  fact 
that  one  part  of  Italy  cannot  understand  the  colloquial 
speech  of  another,  yet  both  can  comprehend  the  language 
of  Florence,  gives  but  a  scant  audience  to  any  single 
dialect.  The  local  drama  is  foredoomed,  its  raisan  d'etre 
being  past,  for  with  the  closer  unification  of  Italy  the 
theatre  with  a  wider  appeal  must  prevail. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
The  Younger  Generation 

The  term  used  to  assemble  a  group  of  dramatists  for 
convenience  of  discussion  calls  for  a  word  of  explanation. 
"The  younger  generation"  must  not  be  taken  in  a  strictly 
exclusive  sense,  since  the  group  includes  some  writers  who 
have  reached  their  prime;  neither  must  it  be  taken  in 
an  all-inclusive  sense,  for  the  discussion  will  not  concern 
itself  with  those  whose  stars  are  barely  peeping  above  the 
horizon.  It  is  intended  to  cover  roughly  the  more  con- 
spicuous among  those  who  have  achieved  a  reputation 
but  who  are  still  producing.  Some  of  these  have  been 
writing  for  years,  some  are  only  successful  beginners; 
all  make  their  appeal  to  the  present  generation  and  share 
its  interests. 

Among  these  younger  men  the  leading  figure  is  without 
question  the  Jew,  Sem  Benelli.  His  Supper  of  Jokes  had 
a  success  such  as  is  comparable  in  recent  drama  only  with 
the  success  of  Rostand's  Cyrano  de  Bergerac.  Indeed,  the 
welcome  it  received  was  more  than  a  success,  —  it  was  a 
furor.  The  enthusiasm  that  he  aroused  then  and  still 
arouses  in  his  countrymen  is  partly  to  be  explained  by  the 
fact  that  he  has  succeeded  in  making  poetic  drama  dra- 
matic. The  Italian  audience  loves  poetry ;  all  audiences 
love  a  play ;  Benelli  succeeds  in  giving  them  both.    Avoid- 


THE   YOUNGER  GENERATION  211 

ing  the  literary  extravagances  of  D'Annunzio,  refusing  to 
allow  his  subject-matter  to  be  engulfed  in  a  wealth  of 
expression,  avoiding  the  terre  a  terre  realism  of  the  Verists, 
he  writes,  when  he  writes  best,  plays  that  are  imaginative, 
poetic,  spectacularly  effective,  taking  literary  form  in  a 
swift,  terse,  musical  verse. 

Th^jlegends  of  Benelli's  youth  are  many.  Whatever 
his  antecedents  (he  was  born  in  1877),  he  was  still  young 
when  he  began  writing  verse  and  reporting  on  various 
journals,  doing  some  work  for  the  Florentine  modernist 
review,  Marzocco. 

Italian  critics  agree  Sem  Benelli's  distinctive  contribu- 
tion to  the  stage  of  to-day  is  his  successful  verse  form,  a 
dramatic  form  new  in  Italian.  His  idea  is  to  reform  dra- 
matic poetry  so  as  to  make  it  clear  and  expressive,  en- 
dowed with  meaning  as  well  as  with  harmony.  He 
writes  verse  which  is  not  given  over  to  resounding  lines 
but  is  made  up  of  real  sentences,  intended  to  be  spoken 
naturally,  emphasizing  the  content,  free  from  artificial 
transpositions,  from  occult  words,  from  effete  poetic  con- 
ventions. Benelli  remodeled  the  old  eleven-syllable  line 
of  classical  tragedy,  the  endecasillabo  scioUo,  into  some- 
thing that  suits  his  own  dramatic  temperament.  He 
calls  them  "versi  d' azione  e  non  di  canto."  His  plac- 
ing of  emphasis  on  the  sense  occasionally  plays  havoc 
with  the  form,  leading  him  into  violations,  sometimes 
even  unnecessary,  of  the  classic  verse  formulas.  How- 
ever, these  may  be  forgiven  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
Benelli  has  done  so  great  a  service  to  Italian  dramatic 
poetry,  devising  and  perfecting  a  verse  form  which 
has  almost  the  fluidity  and  flexibility  of  English  blank 
verse. 


212  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

In  his  first  play  ^  in  prose,  The  Bookworm  {La  Tignola) 
(1904),  Benelli  shows  himself  to  be  a  penetrating  ob- 
server and  a  bitter  humorist.  He  studies  the  sedentary 
and  academic  temperament  in  contrast  with  the  brutalities 
and  crudities  of  the  world  of  affairs. 

The  Bookworm  is  Benelli's  only  prose  play  and  con- 
stitutes his  only  effort  to  handle  a  modern  subject.  It  was 
not  successful  when  it  was  played,  undoubtedly  because  the 
form  was  not  sympathetic  and  the  material  made  no 
appeal  to  Benelli's  distinctive  abilities. 

The  next  play,  a  tragedy,  is  in  his  true  vein,  the  his- 
torical-poetic. The  Mask  of  Brutus  {La  Maschera  di 
Bruto)  (1905)  is  the  story  of  Lorenzino,  called  Lorenzaccio, 
the  same  Medicean  prince  who  furnished  Alfred  De  Musset 
with  a  hero.  A  villainous  story  it  is  of  lust  and  love, 
murder  and  intrigue  in  the  corrupt  court  of  the  sixteenth- 
century  Florence.  Over  the  whole  tragedy  hangs  a  sense 
of  the  grim  irony  of  fate.  Except,  however,  for  a  few 
masterly  scenes,  above  all  that  of  the  murder,  which  is 
one  of  the  best  in  modern  drama,  the  play  is  diffuse  and 
scattered,  the  action  muddy.  But  he  had  found  his  road 
and  from  now  on  the  way  was  clear  —  historical  tragedy. 

Benelli's  second  verse  drama  was  a  masterpiece,  worthy 

to  stand  with   anything   written   in   recent  years,   The 

Supper  of  Jokes  {La  Cena  delle  heffe)  (1909).     The  scene 

is  again  the  Florence  of  the  Renaissance,  dominated  by 

the  awful  presence  of  Lrorenzo  the  Magnificent.    Here 

Benelli  shows  himself  a  consummate  dramatist,  blending 

skilfully  the  grotesque  and  the  ludicrous  with  the  terrible, 

*  Rovito  in  his  Dizionario  prives  four  plays  before  La  Tignola : 
Lasalle,  1902 ;  La  Terra,  1903 ;  Vita  Gaia,  1905,  and  La  Morale 
di  Casanova,  no  date.  We  have  been  unable  to  verify  these 
titles. 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        213 

the  tragic,  and  the  sublime.  It  is  the  story  of  the  terrible 
revenge  wreaked  by  the  weakling  Giannetto  upon  two 
brutal,  bullying  brothers,  Neri  and  Gabriello,  who  had 
long  been  persecuting  him.  The  play  must  be  seen  and 
above  all  heard,  to  be  appreciated.  The  weakling  who 
hates  and  fears  his  weakness  is  a  favorite  character  of 
Benelli's.  He  occurs  in  the  title  role  of  The  Bookworm; 
he  recurs  as  Lorenzaccio  in  The  Mask  of  Brutus,  now 
Giannetto,  and  later  in  the  Emperor  Otto  II  of  Rosmunda. 
The  poet  draws  with  consummate  skill  this  weakling, 
stupendously  imaginative,  the  prey  to  conflicting  emotions. 

"When  this  poet  touches  the  chord  of  rancour,  of 
jealousy,  of  vengeance,  of  deception,  of  dissimulation,  of 
hidden  torment,  his  lyric  instrument  gives  out  tremendous 
sounds,"  one  critic  writes  of  him.  The  creatures  who  are 
actuated  by  these  powerful  malignant  motives  are  pre- 
sented in  startling  relief.  The  Supper  of  Jokes  is  a  fine 
piece  of  livid  tragedy  with  the  turgid  blood  of  the  Renais- 
sance coursing  through  its  veins. 

Next  in  excellence  as  well  as  in  chronology  is  The  Love 
of  the  Three  Kings  (U  Amore  dei  tre  re)  (1910),  which  set 
to  music  by  Montemezzi  has  made  the  round  of  Europe 
and  America.  This  drama  owes  more  than  does  its 
predecessor  to  literary  reminiscence.  It  is  laid  in  the 
Middle  Ages  in  the  time  of  the  barbarian  invasion  of  Italy, 
and  contains  a  motif  to  which  Benelli  returns  more  than 
once,  the  struggle  between  Pagan  and  Christian  character 
and  culture  in  these  early  days.  He  uses  this  again  in 
Rosmunda  and  in  his  latest  published  play.  The  Marriage 
of  the  Centaurs. 

It  seems  to  be  pretty  well  agreed  that  Benelli  has 
never  again  reached  and  maintained  in  any  play  the 


214         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP   ITALY 

consistently  high  level  of  these  two,  —  The  Supper  of 
Jokes  and  The  Love  of  the  Three  Kings.  His  easy  gift  of 
versifying  tempts  him  into  prolixity.  His  eye  for  strong 
effects  betrays  him  into  banality.  He  seems  to  have 
found  out  a  path  to  an  infallible  mechanical  success,  — 
and  he  follows  the  path.  So  that  in  all  too  large  a  measure 
the  ideas  that  inspire  the  different  plays  are  the  same ; 
the  personages  appear  again  and  again  with  mere  changes 
of  costume  and  epoch.  Even  the  forms  of  speech  show 
the  effects  of  this  revamping,  repeating  process,  and 
nouns  give  way  to  adjectives. 

The  Mantle  {II  Mantellaccio)  (1911)  is  again  his- 
torical, set  in  a  background  of  the  academic  life  of  the 
sixteenth  century.  Rosmunda  (1913)  is  on  the  classic 
subject  already  worked  over  by  Alfieri  among  others. 
Briefly,  it  is  another  revenge  tragedy,  and  another  picture 
of  the  struggle  between  pagan  and  Christian. 

In  The  Gorgon  {La  Gorgona)  (1913),  the  scene  is  laid 
in  medieval  Pisa.  Benelli's  latest  play,  The  Marriage 
of  the  Centaurs  {Le  nozze  dei  centauri)  (1915),  personifies 
the  Christian-barbarian  conflict  in  the  persons  of  The 
Emperor  Otto  HI  and  the  pagan  woman,  Stefania.  It 
is  almost  a  complete  repetition  in  motivation  of  his 
Rosmunda.  There  is  a  patriotic  acclamation  of  Roman 
civilization  as  against  northern  culture,  which  is  evidently 
inspired  by  the  clash  of  peoples  in  the  World  War.  Again 
he  has  created  two  magnificent  characters,  that  of  the 
weakling  Emperor,  mystical,  sensuous,  intelligent,  who 
dies  of  his  very  sensuality  in  the  voluptuous  spasmodic 
embrace  under  the  passionate  and  criminal  kiss  of  Stefania, 
the  avenger.  Stefania,  herself,  is  the  other  notable 
figm-e.    In  this  situation  and  with  these  persons,  Benelli 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        215 

has  another  occasion  for  depicting  those  dark  emotions  of 
revenge  and  hate  in  which  he  excels.  Stefania's  struggles 
between  her  love  for  Otto  and  her  determination  to  destroy 
him  are  good  dramatic  material  for  any  artist;  for 
Benelli,  they  are  the  supreme  opportunity.  But  the  play 
is  verbose  and  long-winded.  Making  a  pretence  of  his- 
toricity, it  is  in  reality  historically  inexact.  The  Benellian 
verse  which  in  The  Supper  of  Jokes  was  flexible  and  fluid, 
though  measured  and  exact,  has  become  in  The  Marriage 
of  the  Centaurs  so  free  that  it  is  merely  rhythmic  prose 
cut  up. 

Though  nobody  has  the  hardihood  to  attempt  a  final 
summary  of  a  writer  still  living  and  still  producing, 
Benelli's  one  prose  and  seven  verse  plays  are  voluminous 
enough  to  invite  some  general  conclusions.  On  the 
surface  of  his  work  lies  the  fact  that,  like  most  Italians,  he 
is  a  devotee  at  the  shrines  of  the  past ;  in  the  worship  of 
ancient  things,  the  contemplation  of  bygone  national 
glories,  he  loses  sight  of  the  living  present ;  he  lives  out  of 
hearing  of  the  complicated  and  interesting  problems  of  his 
own  day.  The  Mask  of  Brutus  and  The  Supper  of  Jokes 
are  of  Renaissance  Florence ;  The  Love  of  the  Three  Kings 
of  the  time  of  Belisarius,  The  Gorgon  and  The  Marriage 
of  the  Centaurs  are  also  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  but  Benelli 
cannot  in  any  other  sense  be  called  a  historical  playwright. 
He  is  not  like  Cossa  seriously  trying  to  re-create  an 
epoch.  Arthur  Livingston  says  of  him,  "The  role  of 
history  is  merely  that  of  a  device.  It  lends  probability 
to  various  mechanical  assemblings  of  situation  out  of 
which  an  emotion  may  be  made  to  spring.  It  arouses  a 
sense  of  vagueness  abstracting  the  audience  from  the  pres- 
sure of  immediate  association."    That  Benelli's  use  of 


216         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

history  is,  indeed,  little  more  than  a  theatrical  device  is 
proved  by  the  fact  that  he  takes  so  little  trouble  to  make  it 
authentic.  As  a  psychologist,  Benelli  is  a  bit  one-sided. 
He  has  no  skill  in  displaying  the  gentler  emotions  or 
kindly  activities ;  his  love  scenes  do  not  ring  true :  they 
are  obviously  constructed  and  self-conscious.  But  his 
portrayal  of  hardness,  sternness,  cruelty,  revenge,  lust, 
hate,  are  successful.  One  must  conclude  that  Benelli  has 
found  himself  so  expert  at  a  certain  type  of  character  and 
a  certain  side  of  emotional  experience  that  he  has  not 
taken  the  trouble  to  study  others.  This  seems  a  mis- 
fortune, for  in  The  Bookworm  there  was  promise  of  a  skilful 
and  delicate  student  of  many  aspects  of  character.  Be- 
nelli's  strength  lies  chiefly  in  his  sense  of  dramatic  and 
scenic  effect  and  in  his  mastery  of  an  adaptable  verse. 
He  has  the  eagle  eye  of  a  Sardou  for  situation,  which  he 
develops  in  historical  atmosphere  by  means  of  good  ready 
verse  and  adequate  characterization.  In  every  play 
there  is  at  least  one  very  dramatic  scene  and  by  these 
Benelli  will  stand. 

Has  Benelli,  in  Wilde's  witty  phrase,  "a  great  future 
behind  him?"  or  is  he  going  to  be  able  to  renew  himself 
and  attain  again  his  old  level?  If  he  can  get  out  of  his 
rut,  if  he  becomes  discontented  with  facile  success,  this 
seems  likely.  But  if  he  continues  to  repeat  himself  so 
that  his  plays  resemble  each  other  like  reproductions  of 
one  picture  done  in  different  colors,  he  has,  at  least,  no 
great  future  in  front  of  him.  But  as  he  is  a  comparatively 
young  man  and  has  so  many  gifts,  there  is  much  ground  for 
hope. 

Poetic  drama,  as  has  been  hinted,  satisfies  the  Italians* 
love  of  rhetoric  better  than  mere  prose  can  do.    The 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        217 

names  of  contemporary  writers  of  verse  plays  are  legion. 
A  few  will  suflBce  to  indicate  the  number  and  the  character 
of  the  work.  Ettore  Moschino  (1867-  ),  more  famous 
as  a  lyric  poet,  has  published  a  Tristan  e  Isolda  done  in  the 
manner  of  D'Annunzio ;  Domenico  Tumiati  (1874-  ) 
made  an  interesting  and  distinct  contribution  to  the 
theatre  with  his  revival  of  the  chanted  play  (not  sung  like 
opera).  Older  men  are  Arrigo  Boito  (b.  1842),  who  wrote 
a  Nero  (1900) ;  G.  A.  Cesareo  (b.  1861),  a  Francesca  da 
Rimini  (1906) ;  Enrico  Corradini  (b.  1868),  a  student 
of  Nietzsche,  a  Julius  Caesar  (1902) ;  Pietro  Calvi  (1859- 
1900),  many  tragedies  —  Caracalla,  Bianca  Capello,  Ferdi- 
nand Lasalle,  Maria  Maddalena;  Domenico  Oliva  (b. 
1860),  Robespierre;  Ettore  Romagnoli  has  had  a  success 
at  the  Argentina  recently  with  his  Elena.  Mention  should 
also  he  made  of  the  delightful  comedy  in  verse  of  Luigi 
Rasi,  the  famous  actor  and  teacher  of  dramatic  art.  The 
Comedy  of  the  Pest,  in  a  sense  a  revival  of  the  spirit  of 
Boccaccio's  Decameron,  so  witty  is  it,  so  free  of  guile,  so 
utterly  unmoral. 

Washington  Borg  (b.  1864)  sprang  quite  recently  into 
the  limelight  with  his  adaptation  in  1916  of  Roberto 
Bracco's  La  Presidentessa,  which  he  has  made  into  an 
altogether  delightful  comedy,  as  light  and  frothy  as  the 
sea  foam.  Having  thus  gained  the  public  ear,  Borg 
revived  a  comedy  of  his  own,  Nude  (Nuda),  which  had 
Iain  in  his  drawer  for  some  time.  His  has  been  a  queer 
sort  of  career.  It  is  not  clear  where  he  acquired  his 
Americo-Scandinavian  name.  Of  a  Maltese  family, 
having  lived  in  Egypt,  he  calls  himself  an  Englishman. 
Born  in  1864  of  a  rich  family  of  bankers,  he  was  educated 
in  Pavia  and  Milan ;  after  livmg  the  cosmopolitan  life  of 


218         THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

ease  and  travel  until  he  was  about  thirty,  then  losing  a 
large  part  of  his  fortune  in  unfortunate  speculation,  he 
returned  to  Italy,  and  settling  in  Naples  began  to  write 
plays.  These  were  well  received  in  a  narrow  circle, 
and  have  been  produced  by  some  of  the  foremost  artists, 
yet,  for  some  reason,  fame  evaded  his  grasp.  For  one 
thing,  he  had  absolutely  no  gift  and  no  taste  for  self- 
advertisement.  His  first  play,  Semina,  was  played  by 
the  actress  Mariani  with  eclat;  his  only  play  to  receive 
the  consecration  of  print  was  Sensitive,  in  which  De  Sanctis 
appeared.  Red  Roses  {Rose  rosse)  had  considerable  vogue, 
as  did  also  The  Returning  Past  {II  Passato  che  toma). 
Three  Gardens  {Tre  giardini).  Susette's  Catechism  {II 
catechism  0  di  Susetta),  with  which  Tina  di  Lorenzo  went 
on  tour,  was  not  an  entire  success,  though  it  had  literary 
merit.  Another  play  was  Flight  of  Swallows  {Volo  di 
rondini).  But,  though  Borg  had  this  considerable  list 
of  plays  to  his  credit,  he  dropped  out  of  sight  for  some 
years  until  his  adaptation  of  La  Presidentessa  brought 
him  once  more  into  the  public  eye.  Nude  is  his  most 
serious  and  sustained  effort  and  he  shows  considerable 
merit  as  a  psychologist. 

Roberto  Bracco  has  achieved  the  distinction  of  having 
several  of  his  plays  presented  outside  of  his  native  land, 
but  they  have  not  had  that  measure  of  success  that  con- 
stitutes a  good  financial  investment.  This,  all  too  often 
considered  the  crowning  criterion  of  success,  has  been 
reserved  for  Dario  Niccodemi,  two  of  whose  plays  have 
had  long  and  successful  runs  in  America,  interpreted  by 
John  Drew  and  Ethel  Barrymore.  He  has  been  assisted 
in  the  English  adaptations  of  his  plays  by  Michael  Morton. 
Niccodemi  is  the  Italian  Bernstein;    there  are  reasons 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        219 

for  believing  that  he  writes  for  the  sake  of  success,  with  a 
shrewd  eye  upon  the  royalties,  with  no  great  purpose,  with 
few  ideas.  He  is,  however,  unmistakably  and  typically 
Italian  in  his  attitude  toward  conventions  and  the  viola- 
tion of  them  and  rebellions  against  them.  Ostensibly  a 
feminist  of  the  Bracco  type,  he  endows  his  heroines  with 
a  tremendous  power  of  will,  but  neither  they  nor  he 
seem  to  question  the  standards  by  which  they  are  con- 
demned. All  this  may  be  taking  Niccodemi  too  seriously. 
Perhaps  he  is  only  trying  to  write  stage  plays.  He  has 
produced  to  date  The  Refuge  {II  Rifugio)  (1913),  first 
played  in  French  as  Le  Refuge  (1909),  and  acted  by  John 
Drew  as  The  Prodigal  Husband,  which  is  a  foolish  bit  of 
conventionality  whose  success  is  hard  to  explain.  The 
Aigrette  (L' Aigrette)  is  quite  as  silly,  a  tale  of  impoverished 
nobles,  of  amorous  and  financial  intrigue,  not  worthy  of 
serious  consideration.  The  Sharks  {I  Pescecani)  was  a 
failure  in  Italy,  where  it  was  met  with  much  indifference 
and  some  opposition. 

The  Shadow  {L'Ombra)  (1915)  is  very  much  better  and 
falls  only  a  hair's-breadth  short  of  being  a  good  play. 
Originally  written  in  French  for  Rejane,  who,  owing  to 
war  conditions,  was  unable  to  produce  it,  The  Shadow  re- 
ceived its  premiere  with  Ethel  Barrymore  in  the  title  role. 

Remnant  (Schmpolo),  the  protagonist  of  the  play  of 
that  name,  is  a  young  girl,  a  guttersnipe  from  the  lowest 
quarter  of  Paris.  She  has  preserved  her  honor  pure  and 
unsullied  through  all  the  wickedness  of  the  life  she  has 
lived,  and  after  rescuing  a  young  artist  from  the  clutches 
of  a  virago  into  whose  hands  he  has  fallen,  marries  him  and 
becomes  a  devoted  wife  —  obviously  a  bit  of  sentimental 
effectivism. 


220         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

The  Enemy  {La  Nemica)  treats  of  the  maternal  instinct. 
A  stepmother  hates  her  stepson  as  the  usurper  of  her  own 
son's  property  and  standing  and  is  jealous  also  of  his 
mental  and  moral  superiority.  The  boy,  however,  has  a 
mystic  affection  for  her  whom  he  regards  as  his  real  mother. 
When  her  own  son  is  killed  in  the  war,  she  turns  to  the 
stepson  and  lavishes  on  him  all  the  love  she  had  formerly 
reserved  for  the  other. 

The  Titan  {II  Titano),  Niccodemi's  latest,  is  also  a  war 
play.  He  shows  the  awakening  of  the  social  conscious- 
ness in  Italy  since  the  outbreak  of  the  Great  War. 

Niccodemi  may  not  be  called  a  great  dramatist;  and 
he  just  misses  being  a  good  one  by  his  willingness  to  be 
contented  with  an  easy  triumph.  In  the  face  of  a  modern 
world  which  demands  reasoning,  which  demands  illumina- 
tion, he  is  content  to  write  stage  plays.  All  his  technical 
skill  cannot  make  up  for  his  deficiency  in  ideas  and  his 
poverty  of  human  observation. 

The  next  four  dramatists  to  be  considered  hail  from 
three  different  localities  and  partake  each  of  the  tone  and 
flavor  of  his  native  province :  Luigi  Pirandello  is  a  Sicilian, 
Sabatino  Lopez  and  Augusto  Novelli  are  Florentines, 
Alfredo  Testoni  a  Bolognese.  They  all  in  a  very  real 
sense  interpret  their  localities  to  the  world,  for  under  the 
siu^face  of  local  color  one  finds  the  universal  human  appeal 
which  secures  them  a  hearing  wherever  they  may  be  given. 
Luigi  Pirandello's  best  work  has  been  done  in  the  novel 
rather  than  the  drama,  but  his  plays  are  so  good  that  they 
cannot  be  passed  over  in  a  history  of  the  contemporary 
stage.  They  are  the  work  of  a  great  literary  artist  and 
sound  psychologist  and  a  keen  satirist.  He  is  classed 
usuallv  as  a  humorist.    But  he  is  such  a  humorist  as 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        221 

laughs  only  to  keep  from  weeping  at  the  disillusionments 
of  life  and  the  crudity  of  existence.  Pirandello  is  entirely 
Latin  in  the  normal  world  that  he  presents,  as  well  as  in 
the  abnormal  world  he  constructs.  Take,  for  example,  the 
case  of  the  woman  who  loves  her  husband  only  as  father, 
and  who  can,  therefore,  love  him  only  in  connection  with 
the  child  he  has  had  by  a  mistress  {If  not  thus  — ) ;  or 
the  more  striking  case  of  a  husband,  advanced  in  years, 
who  prevents  his  young  wife's  lover  from  deserting  her 
(Just  Think,  Giacomino  /). 

Pirandello  was  born  in  Girgente  in  Sicily  in  1867. 
Having  first  received  a  fine  training  in  Italy,  he  then  took 
his  degree  with  honors  in  philosophy  and  philology  at  the 
University  of  Bonn.  Returning  to  his  native  country, 
he  went  to  writing  and  teaching.  He  has  been  since  1907 
professor  in  the  Istituto  Superiore  di  Magestero  Fem- 
minile,  the  woman's  higher  normal  school  at  Rome. 
His  novels  are  deservedly  popular,  even  figuring  as  "best 
sellers,"  and  his  stream  of  fiction,  poetry,  and  drama  has 
been  ample  and  steady  for  many  years. 

His  plays  number  nine  or  ten,  some  of  them  one-act 
pieces.  The  Bite  (La  Morsa)  was  his  first,  followed  by  the 
sketch,  Sicilian  Limes  (Lumle  di  Sicilia),  a  delightful 
trifle  done  with  delicate  and  sober  touch.  Scamandra, 
The  Doctor's  Duty  {II  Dovero  del  medico)  and  the  Pleasure 
of  Honesty  {II  Piacere  delV  onesta)  are  others  of  the  better 
known  of  his  plays.  Since  1914  he  has  written  //  not 
thus  —  !  {Se  nm  cosl  — )  (1914) ;  At  the  Door  {AW 
uscita),  which  he  calls  Mistero  profano,  and  which  is  a 
piece  of  mysticism  inspired  by  the  tragedy  of  the  Great 
War;  Ju^t  Think,  Giacomino!  {Pensaci,  Giacomino!), 
and  Lidla,  a  commedia  campestra.    An  analysis  of  two  of 


222         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

these  will  seem  to  indicate  what  is  characteristic  in 
Pirandello's  temper  and  his  choice  of  subject.  //  not 
thus  — /  and  Just  Think,  Giacomino!  are  both  called 
comedies,  but  comedies  they  are  not  in  the  sense  that 
they  reflect  humor  or  evoke  fun ;  but  they  are  comedies  in 
the  sense  that  they  involve  a  certain  whimsical  topsy- 
turviness,  a  sort  of  detached  cynicism  growing  out  of  the 
disillusions,  the  compromises,  the  failures,  and  the  incon- 
gruities of  life,  —  a  spectacle  that  wrings  from  the  chron- 
icler not  a  bitter  smile  but  a  wry  one.  This  is  precisely 
the  reaction  one  might  expect  in  any  Sicilian  to  whom  life 
presents  itself  as  comedy.  The  Sicilian  temperament  is 
essentially  tragic.  It  is  suSicient  to  recall  some  of  the 
figures  of  Verga,  moving  in  the  spiritual  solitude  he  creates 
for  them,  as  in  a  fiery  desert,  their  hearts  burning  with  dark 
passions  and  cold  with  silent  bitterness. 

That  Pirandello  leans  toward  pessimism  is  due  to  his 
race  and  temperament,  his  world-weariness  controlled 
and  directed  by  his  disciplined  intellect.  He  casts  his 
ideas  in  the  form  of  sentimental  satire,  seeing  man  with 
l^is  affairs  as  the  object  of  a  half-humorous  pity,  as  a 
mistaken  or  perverse  child,  as  the  plaything  of  circum- 
stance and  of  passions  he  can  neither  escape  nor  control. 
Pirandello  does  not  wilfully  avoid  or  evade  modern  prob- 
lems ;  they  lie  well  within  the  margin  of  some  of  his  plays, 
but  his  mind  does  not  concern  itself  with  "isms"  and 
"ologies"and  "pathies."  So, though  he  chooses  his  material 
from  modern  life,  his  work  has  not  the  "modern"  tinge. 

If  not  thus  !  is  a  study  of  the  maternal  instinct  in  a 
woman  who  loves  in  her  husband  his  paternity,  not  him- 
self. Her  attitude  is  that  where  the  children  are,  there 
is  the  real  marriage. 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        223 

Just  Think,  Giacomino!  Pirandello's  last  play  but  one, 
is  not  so  good  as  //  not  thus  — ,  but  is  similar  in  tone  and 
moral,  for  with  all  his  cynicism,  there  is  at  the  bottom  of 
his  plays  a  deposit  of  kindliness,  humanity,  gentleness 
that  is  almost  Tolstoian  in  its  simplicity.  The  main 
thing  in  life  is  to  be  good  to  one  another,  as  fellow-travelers 
in  a  vale  of  tears.  Such,  at  least,  is  the  philosophy  of 
the  old  provincial  professor  of  natural  history,  who 
marries  a  fallen  girl  in  order  to  save  her  honor  ^and 
give  the  child  a  home  as  well  as  to  have  companionship 
in  his  old  age.  The  new  ethical  point  of  view  and 
the  acuteness  of  analysis  make  Just  Think,  Giaco- 
mino! an  intensely  interesting  piece  of  psychology;  the 
profound  kindliness  of  its  protagonist  and  his  uncondi- 
tional human  solution  of  a  vexed  question  make  it  good 
drama. 

The  Tuscan  Sabatino  Ijopez  is  more  Gallic  than  Italian 
in  his  work,  following  in  the  footsteps  of  Paul  Hervieu 
and  his  Italian  prototype,  Butti,  in  writing  Le  thedtre 
cruel,  that  drama  which  claims  to  be  devoid  of  pity  and 
praise  as  it  is  of  hatred  and  condemnation.  Like  so  many 
other  recent  writers,  Lopez  began  his  career  as  a  disciple  of 
the  doctrine  of  impassibility  in  art  —  the  claim  that  the 
only  important  thing  is  truth.  "One  should  always 
take  his  point  of  departure  in  the  true,"  he  writes.  "With- 
out the  truth,  nothing  is  worth  while."  But  Lopez  has 
not  the  logical,  far-reaching  mind  of  a  Hervieu.  He  does 
not,  on  the  other  hand,  give  us  "human  nature  in  the 
raw",  but  glosses  it  over  with  a  gentle  varnish  of  semi- 
Giacosan  bonhommie;  Tonelli  attributes  to  him,  "La 
Serena  indulgente  bonta  giacosana."  In  every  other 
respect,  however,  Lopez  differs  from  the  author  of  As  the 


224         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

Leaves,  Giacosa's  dramas  having  nothing  in  common  with 
those  of  the  Theatre  cruel  school. 

Like  Pirandello  and  Camillo  Antona-Traversi,  Lopez 
is  of  the  intellectuals,  a  doctor  of  letters  and  a  professor. 
He  was  born  at  Leghorn  in  1867,  educated  in  Italy  and  is 
dramatic  critic  of  the  famous  review,  II  Secolo  XIX.  He 
gave  himself  early  to  literature,  his  first  play  dating  from 
1889,  Ariana,  a  comedy.  By  Night  (Di  notte)  (1890) 
was  played  successfully  in  Paris  by  the  Theatre  Interna- 
tional d'art  in  1902 ;  The  Secret  {II  segreto)  (1894)  may 
be  taken  as  typical  of  his  early  manner.  It  is  in  one  act, 
a  form  to  which  Lopez  is  much  addicted,  and  savors  of  the 
Grand  Guignol  "shocker."  The  Secret  was  awarded  a 
prize  by  the  minister  of  public  instruction!  It  is  the 
play  of  a  young  man,  promising  rather  than  satisfying. 
He  depicts  manners  and  morals  that  would  be  intolerable 
anywhere  in  real  life.  Nevertheless,  there  is  undoubted 
power  in  the  situation  and  cleverness  in  the  dialogue. 

In  later  plays  he  has  diluted  the  "cruelty"  and  the 
impassibility  of  his  earlier  dramatic  theory  with  a  large 
admixture  of  human  kindness.  The  passive  resistance 
of  the  public  to  the  purely  disagreeable  has  performed  its 
function  and  his  plays  have  responded.  Caterina,  The 
Good  Girl,  has  been  unhappy  in  love,  has  fled  to  Rome, 
and  there  become  the  mistress  of  a  politician.  Her  own 
former  lover  (in  the  English  sense)  is  paying  court  to  her 
sister,  an  innocent  little  country  girl.  Through  her 
cleverness  and  sisterly  affection.  The  Good  Girl  overcomes 
the  opposition  of  the  young  man's  parents  and  sees  the 
two  happily  married  and  dowried.  Though  the  play 
is  not  coherent  in  plot,  it  is  a  fine  consistent  bit  of  char- 
acterization.   The  various  milieux,  too,  peasant,  political, 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        225 

bourgeois,  in  which  the  action  goes  on,  are  composed 
of  first-hand  impressions. 

The  Beast  and  the  Beauties  {II  Brutto  e  le  belle)  (1910)  is 
worth  dwelling  on  for  a  moment.  Ferrante  is  the  Beast. 
Ugly,  he  is  at  the  same  time  an  accomplished  Don  Juan. 
He  can  make  love  to  any  woman  any  time,  he  claims, 
not  by  flattery  but  by  frankness  and  brutality.  He  is 
eminently  successful  jusqu'au  dernier  point  exclusivement, 
as  Rabelais  would  say,  for  the  women  cannot  bear  his 
face  —  he  is  too  homely !  The  details  of  the  play  are 
.  most  amusing.  The  Beast  and  the  Beauties  was  written  for 
Zacconi  and  bears  the  imprint  of  its  origin.  The  minor 
characters,  the  old  Republican  patriot,  the  Beast's  young 
ward,  the  three  ladies,  the  handsome  young  beaux  of 
Rome,  are  convincingly  lifelike.  The  scene  is  laid  in  a 
Roman  pension. 

Every  Man  for  Himself  (La  nostra  pelle)  (1912)  was 
followed  by  TJw  Hurricane  (L'  Ouragan)  (1913),  written 
in  French.  The  Third  Husband  {II  Terzo  marito)  (1913) 
is  Lopez's  only  thesis  play.  In  this  he  attacks  the 
prejudice  against  divorcees  and  against  the  re-marriage 
of  widows.  In  1915  he  wrote  The  Tangle  {II  Viluppo), 
a  return  to  the  theatre  cruel  of  his  younger  days,  a  study 
of  the  jealousy  of  a  husband  which  lasts  even  beyond  the 
grave  and  finds  a  new  victim  in  a  child  of  his  dead  wife. 
It  strikes  a  note  not  common  in  Italian  drama  in  making 
its  hero  a  man  of  big  business,  an  engineer.  Lopez's  last 
play  is  Mario  e  Maria  (1916). 

Lopez  is  not  in  any  sense  strictly  Italian,  but  rather 
cosmopolitan.  Except  for  details  of  local  color,  and, 
to  a  limited  extent,  of  national  types,  The  Good  Girl  or  The 
Tangle  might  have  been  written  by  a  Frenchman.    Au- 


226         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

gusto  Novelli,  on  the  other  hand,  is  intensely  Italian  and 
Florentine.  Born  in  Florence  in  1867,  he  has  lived  and 
worked  there  all  his  life.  He  is  to  Florence  what  Salvatore 
di  Giacomo  is  to  Naples.  First  as  student,  then  journalist, 
then  municipal  councilor,  he  has  had  an  opportunity  of 
studying  his  native  city  from  A  to  Z,  of  which  he  has  taken 
the  fullest  advantage.  Nobody  knows  his  Florence  as 
does  Novelli,  —  not  only  the  nobility  but  the  lowest 
classes,  indeed  the  latter  best  of  all.  Novelli  is  the  acme, 
the  representative  true  to  type,  the  epitome  of  all  that  is 
Florentine.  He  is  a  sublimated  George  Cohan,  for, 
taking  his  material  from  everyday  life  and  current  events, 
as  does  the  American,  he  weaves  it  into  his  plays,  —  better 
plays  it  must  be  granted  than  Cohan  makes.  He  has 
another  side  to  him  to  be  more  deeply  reckoned  with. 
He  is  capable  of  writing  serious  historical  plays  which  have 
genuine  value  as  re-creations  of  his  city's  past.  But  most 
of  his  plays  are  scenes  from  current  Florentine  life  pre- 
sented in  Florentine  dialect.  It  is,  indeed,  a  pity  that  he 
does  not  write  in  pure  Italian  for  the  larger  public  of  the 
whole  peninsula,  but  he  prefers  to  make  a  local  appeal, 
and  in  this  he  is  justified  if  local  success  and  popularity 
can  justify  an  artist  in  refusing  to  widen  his  circle  of 
influence.  Night  after  night  and  season  after  season  the 
Florentines  crowd  to  the  Teatro  Alfieri  to  view  a  new 
comedy  of  Novelli.  His  fecundity,  too,  is  astonishing, 
producing  a  steady  stream  of  dramas,  historical  plays, 
farces,  and  comedies,  revealing  a  seemingly  inexhaustible 
reserve  of  situation,  of  humor,  and  of  character.  With 
the  simplest  situation,  by  means  of  his  infallible  eye  for 
character  and  his  keen  sense  of  fun,  he  can  produce  a 
ripping  farce  or  a  refreshing  comedy  of  manners.    We 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        227 

rock  with  laughter  at  Still  Waters,  over  the  spectacle  of 
a  young  country  swell  reading  Dante  to  a  cabman's  family, 
or  a  reporter  trying  to  make  news  out  of  the  embarrassing 
situation  of  the  same  family.  Novelli  is  the  Florentine 
Labiche. 

He  began  with  writing  plays  to  delight  his  fellow- 
townsmen  almost  thirty  years  ago,  his  first  play  being 
Love  on  the  House  Tops  (L'Amore  sui  tetti)  (1891),  followed 
in  the  next  year  by  a  serious  play,  Mantegna  (1897),  which 
is  curiously  close  in  plot  and  character  to  Giacosa's  As  the 
Leaves.  Another  serious  play  Afterwards  {Dopo)  received 
a  government  prize  and  was  played  by  Ermete  Novelli. 
He  shows  in  this  play  the  terrible  consequences  of  a 
delitto  di  sangue.  Since  that  time,  he  has  written  more 
than  thirty  plays,  which  may  be  divided  into  three  classes, 
—  serious  dramas  of  the  type  of  Mantegna,  historical 
plays  of  which  The  Cupola  is  a  good  instance,  and  comedies 
of  Florentine  life  like  the  famous  Still  Waters,  The  Lady 
of  the  Fourth  Page  (La  Signorina  delta  quaria  pagina) 
(1901);  Old  Heroes  (Vechi  Eroi)  (1906);  The  Line 
Viareggio  —  Pisa  —  Roma  (Linea  Viareggio  —  Pisa  — 
Roma)  (1910),  or  the  popular  Florentine  scenes  in 
Purgatorio,  Inferno,  e  Paradiso  (1908).  In  this  third 
division  is  to  be  found  his  characteristic  work. 

Novelli  is  at  home  and  expert  in  the  historical  play, 
of  which  we  shall  let  The  Cupola  and  Canapone  stand 
as  examples.  The  Cupola  is  an  evocation  of  Florence 
of  the  fifteenth  century.  Novelli  has  taken  an  incident 
from  Vasari's  Lives  of  Painters  and  has  expanded  it 
with  a  wealth  of  erudition  and  power  of  assimilation  one 
would  not  suspect  in  the  author  of  Still  Waters.  It  is 
the  story  of  the  building  of  the  dome  of  the  Cathedral 


228         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

which  Filippo  Brunelleschi,  after  being  sneered  at  by  the 
Syndics,  finally  accomplished  by  piling  up  a  huge  mound 
of  earth  and  then  constructing  his  scaffolding  on  top  of 
that.  Novelli  involves  a  love  story  with  this  historic 
material.  Every  incident,  every  property,  almost  every 
speech  he  justifies  historically,  by  documents  from  Floren- 
tine archives.  These  historical  bricks  he  cements  into 
a  unified  whole  with  a  mortar  of  dramatic  imagination, 
so  that  he  makes  of  The  Cupola  a  first-rate  historical 
comedy.  With  all  its  wealth  of  local  color,  its  appeal  to 
local  tradition,  written  as  it  is  in  Florentine  dialect,  the 
play  loses  much  by  being  seen  off  its  native  heath. 

In  Canapone,  the  other  historical  play  to  be  discussed, 
he  places  the  action  in  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  when  the  Austrians 
and  their  sympathizers  were  finally  expelled.  The  action 
centers  about  the  person  of  the  Archduke  Leopold  II  of 
Tuscany,  nicknamed  White  Beard  {Canapone),  A  good 
plain  bourgeois  sort  of  ruler,  he  foresees  the  revolution 
and  sympathizes  with  it,  but  is  unable  through  inertia 
and  lack  of  intelligence  to  ward  it  off  or  forestall  it.  He 
goes  off  after  a  bloodless  revolt  to  Vienna,  there  to  await 
his  restoration  to  his  throne.  It  is  an  excellent  picture 
of  this  old  fellow,  good  but  stupid,  and  of  the  events 
which  led  to  the  independence  of  Tuscany.  It  evokes, 
too,  the  remarkable  spirit  of  these  exciting  days,  full  of 
enthusiasm  for  the  nation  coming  into  being,  full  of  high 
nationalistic  idealism.  ■ 

The  greater  part  of  Novelli's  work  has  been  in  the  field 
of  popular  comedies.  His  first  play.  Love  on  the  Hotise 
Tops,  is  of  this  sort,  —  a  pleasing  bit,  showing  a  new  and 
different  milieu,  displaying  a  knowledge  of  the  diflScult 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        229 

art  of  imparting  gaiety  to  an  audience,  which  gives  promise 
of  great  things.  Among  the  best  known  of  his  comedies 
are  The  Snail  {La  chiocciola)  (1901) ;  Old  Heroes; 
Lippi's  Virgins  (Le  Vergini  delLippi)  (1901) ;  Still  Waters; 
JJ  aqua  passata  (untranslatable,  it  comes  from  the 
proverb.  Aqua  passato,  non  rrmcina  piu)  (1908);  Home, 
Home !  {Casa  mia,  Casa  mia)  (1910) ;  The  Changeling 
{U  Morticino)  (1910) ;  Invited  to  Dinner  (Invitato  a 
pranzo)  (1910),  and  such  piece  d* occasion  as  the  war 
play,  Xa  Xw/^wmc?e  (1906).  While  each  has  its  peculiar 
merit  and  its  individual  differentiation,  they  are  not  so 
essentially  unlike  that  an  analysis  of  one  will  not  serve  to 
characterize  all.  The  best  known,  Still  Waters,  will  serve 
best.  One  is  impressed  always  with  the  tenuousness  of 
situation  and  intrigue,  the  mere  nothings  out  of  which, 
with  a  pinch  of  irony,  a  spoonful  of  good  humor  and  a 
lot  of  knowledge  of  human  nature,  Novelli  concocts  a 
first-rate  comedy  of  manners. 

In  Still  Waters  it  is  the  family  of  a  Florentine  cabman, 
who  rejoices  in  the  significant  appellation  of  Ulysses, 
who  are  shown  in  their  daily  life.  There  are  two  daughters 
in  the  family  and  two  claimants  for  their  hands,  —  one  a 
lodger,  a  pretentious  young  man  of  morals  none  too  strict ; 
the  other  a  carpenter  whose  suit  is  frowned  upon  by  the 
family.  The  younger  daughter  is  planning  to  elope  with 
the  lodger ;  the  carpenter,  coming  to  visit  his  sweetheart, 
has  been  surprised  and  has  concealed  himself  in  a  tree  in 
the  garden,  from  which  vantage  point  he  overhears  the 
plan  for  the  elopement.  To  save  the  girl,  he  gets  the 
young  couple  arrested  as  burglars.  To  the  parents,  wild 
over  the  disappearance  of  their  girl,  enter  the  carpenter. 
If  they  consent  to  his  marriage  with  the  elder  daughter, 


230         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

he  will  produce  the  culprits  unscathed.  They  finally 
consent,  he  has  the  pair  released,  the  family  is  reunited, 
and  the  lodger  gets  his  deserts.  The  explanations  occur 
in  the  presence  of  a  reporter  from  the  daily  paper,  La 
Fieramosca,  who  is  resolved  to  make  news  of  it.  As 
may  be  seen,  it  verges  upon  the  farcical,  all  of  it,  but  is 
saved  by  a  lot  of  legitimate  comedy. 

There  remains  for  our  consideration  the  Bolognese 
comedian,  Alfredo  Testoni,  whose  success  throughout 
Italy  has  been  greater  than  Novelli's,  though  his  local 
reputation  cannot  equal  the  Florentine's.  Testoni  par- 
takes of  the  qualities  both  of  Roberto  Bracco  and  Giannino 
Antona-Traversi,  but  adds  to  them  a  rollicking  sense  of 
fun  which  makes  him  very  pleasant  to  meet  in  the  some- 
what melancholy  environs  of  the  modern  Italian  drama. 
The  smile  of  a  Bracco,  a  Lopez,  or  a  Pirandello  is  a  wry 
one.  Only  Novelli  and  Testoni  bring  out  the  good  hearty 
laugh  that  expands  the  girth  and  quickens  the  blood. 
They  have  the  wit  and  intelligence  to  be  farcical,  they 
are  even  clever  enough  to  be  nonsensical.  And  these  are 
gifts  rarer  in  the  South  than  in  the  more  whimsical  and 
capricious  North.  His  worst  plays,  like  Living  Quietly 
(In  quieto  vivere),  are  those  in  which  he  expounds  a  thesis ; 
his  best  those  where  he  is  unaffectedly  natural  without 
arrihe  pensee,  without  his  veil  of  sadness  or  melancholy, 
free  from  all  bitterness,  those  in  which  he  is  content  to 
laugh  and  live. 

Testoni  was  bom  in  1867  at  Modena,  but  has  lived  all 
his  life  in  Bologna.  He  early  wrote  dialect  poetry,  but, 
failing  to  please  in  this  form,  turned  to  the  drama,  where 
he  was  well  received  from  the  first.  That  Certain  Some- 
thing! {Quel  non  so  che!)  (190-)  was   much  applauded, 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        231 

Between  two  Pillows  (Fra  due  guanciali)  (1904)  is  char- 
acteristic. It  is  as  frothy  an  intrigue  as  can  be  imagined, 
and  incarnates  Testoni's  Italy,  amoral,  vain,  light,  satisfied 
with  life  as  it  is,  looking  upon  events,  not  from  their  grave 
moral  side,  but  from  the  side  of  their  diverting  accidents 
and  incongruities. 

Discipline  (Ordinanza),  a  piece  in  one  act,  is  woven  of 
different  texture.  An  orderly  loves  the  daughter  of  his 
colonel,  but  acts  as  messenger  between  her  and  her  fiance, 
a  lieutenant  of  his  regiment.  The  private  performs  this 
duty  with  heroic  self-abnegation.  Living  Quietly  is  on 
the  theme  that  there  must  be  equilibrium  in  married  life 
—  either  a  menage  a  deux  or  a  quatre,  never  a  menage  a 
trots.  Duchessina,  In  avioTnobile,  and  The  Spark  {La 
scintilla)  are  other  plays.  The  Model  {La  Modella) 
shows  the  vampire  woman  in  action. 

Like  all  the  other  moderns,  Testoni  has  tried  his  hand 
at  historical  comedy.  His  Cardinale  Lambertini,  as  played 
by  Zacconi,  has  held  the  boards  now  for  many  years. 
The  protagonist  was  an  actual  person  who  flourished  in 
Bologna  in  the  seventeenth  century.  Through  a  light 
and  amorous  intrigue,  we  follow  the  delightful  frivolous 
old  priest. 

A  word  must  be  said  of  Testoni's  delightful  nonsense 
in  the  volume  of  Piccolo  Teatro,  made  up  of  brilliant  and 
impossible  saynetes,  exquisite  gems  of  ridiculousness. 
Some  are  in  verse,  —  real  nonsense  verse,  like  A  game  — 
at  sea  !  {Una  partita  —  in  mare) ;  others  in  prose  like  The 
Psychiatric  Expert  {II  perito  psichiatra),  which  he  calls 
scena  poco  scientifico.  The  best  aside  from  these  two  are 
the  delightful  parodies,  In  the  Train  {In  treno);  The 
Hygienic  Expert  {L'Igienista) ;  U  acqua  passaia  rum  madna 


232  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

piu  (untranslatable),  and  the  Scientific-humanitarian 
Book  Store  {II  libraio  scientifico-umanitario) .  Besides 
these  works  in  Italian,  Testoni  has  written  in  Bolognese 
dialect  The  Servant  {El  Seruv),  Parrot,  whai  time  is  itf 
{Pappagal,  ch'  our  e')  and  Qu£l  che  paga  V  olio  (another  un- 
translatable proverbial  expression)  which  shows,  by  the 
way,  a  remarkable  similarity  to  Gerolamo  Rovetta's 
Dishonest  Men. 

Testoni's  plays,  distinctly  meant  to  be  seen  and  heard, 
submit  even  less  readily  than  other  plays  to  the  cold 
analysis  of  the  armchair.  They  are  distinguished  for 
their  brio,  their  good  humor  and  fun,  but  are  empty  of 
ideas.  We  laugh,  but  leave  the  theatre  unsatisfied.  His 
is  par  excellence  the  drama  of  amusement,  but  he  has  one 
solid  virtue:  he  represents  the  side  of  Italian  realism 
which  studies  the  lighter  side  of  life  and  the  lighter  classes 
of  society.  He  is  Rabelais  and  Giannino  Antona-Traversi 
in  miniature. 

The  dramatists  who  are  at  present  writing  are  so  many 
that  only  a  few  can  be  picked  for  special  mention,  making 
the  choice  as  characteristic  as  possible.  Ugo  Ojetti 
(b.  1871),  more  famous  as  critic,  has  done  some  plays : 
A  Pink  {Un  Garofano);  The  Uselessness  of  Evil  {V  inun 
tilita  del  male) ;  All  for  Love  {Tutto  per  V  amore).  Silvario 
Zambaldi's  (b.  1870)  The  Doctor's  Wife  {La  Moglie  del 
dottore),  a  study  of  a  woman  sterile  through  an  operation, 
who  ardently  desires  motherhood,  is  his  only  permanently 
successful  attempt. 

This  list  of  the  younger  generation  of  playwrights, 
though  incomplete,  is,  it  may  be  hoped,  representative. 
Though  their  work  constitute  a  small  proportion  of  con- 
temporaneous theatrical  production,  it  is  typical.    And 


THE  YOUNGER  GENERATION        233 

when  one  has  mentioned  Benelli,  Moschino,  Tumiati, 
Boito,  Cesareo,  Calvi,  Oliva,  Borg,  Niccodemi,  Pirandello, 
Lopez,  Novelli,  Testoni,  Ojetti,  and  Zambaldi,  one  has 
named  those  who  stand  out  as  prominent  in  the  present- 
day  Italian  drama. 


CHAPTER  IX 
Futurism  and  Other  Isms 

It  is  obvious  that  the  study  of  contemporary  Italian 
drama  resolves  itself  on  the  theoretical  side  into  a  study 
of  successive,  sometimes  simultaneous  isms.  As  early 
as  1889  Capuana  named  a  book  of  literary  criticism 
Gli  smi  contemporanei.  It  could  hardly  be  other- 
wise in  any  modern  literature,  since  the  general  dis- 
tribution of  ideas  and  modes  and  the  constant  circulation 
of  criticism  and  artistic  theory  make  the  whole  world  self- 
conscious  and  sensitive  to  the  changing  order.  Therefore 
with  the  drama  in  Italy  we  have  passed  from  Romanticism 
to  Neo-Romanticism,  to  realism,  to  verism,  to  naturalism, 
to  psychologism. 

There  are  critics  who  insist  that  these  categories  have 
been  borrowed  from  France  and  foisted  upon  Italy,  that 
the  Italian  theatre  did  not  pass  through  any  orderly 
development  which  would  make  the  impression  of  a  steady 
progression  from  ism  to  ism.  It  is  quite  true  that  in 
Italy  it  is  not  possible,  as  it  is  possible  in  France,  to  draw 
distinct  lines  between  the  varieties ;  they  shade  into  one 
another  and  overlap,  the  same  artist  expressing  himself 
in  more  than  one  of  the  styles.  But  the  categories  do  apply 
in  the  main,  and  if  we  are  to  grasp  intelligently  the  works 
of  the  dramatists,  if  we  are  to  handle  them  adequately, 


FUTURISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS        235 

and  especially  if  we  are  to  put  them  into  the  perspective 
of  the  world's  dramatic  art,  it  is  convenient  if  not  necessary 
to  adopt  the  cliches  of  the  accepted  schools  and  to  avail 
ourselves  of  the  convenient  pigeonholes  provided  by  the 
familiar  categories. 

Psychologism  does  not  close  the  "ismology."  There 
are  two  others  that  have  followed,  —  sestheticism  and 
futurism.  The  former,  so  far  as  it  is  an  ism,  that  is  to 
say,  a  conscious  programme,  is  a  reaction,  one  might  say  a 
revulsion  against  the  baldness  and  bareness  of  a  thorough- 
going realism  in  favor  of  beauty,  of  warmth,  of  decoration. 
It  is  as  a  practice  embodied  in  the  work  of  Pascoli,  in  that 
super-dilettante,  Gabriele  D'Annunzio,  and  in  that  of  a 
few  of  their  disciples.  For  the  dogma  "  Art  for  art's  sake  " 
they  substitute  "Life  for  art's  sake";  existence  is  aes- 
thetic reaction ;  experience  the  titillation  of  the  senses,  the 
prosecution  of  sensation ;  art  the  translation  of  this  expe- 
rience into  some  form  that  will  set  up  the  corresponding 
sensuous  reactions  in  the  beholder.  As  a  corollary  to  this 
quest  for  beauty,  they  turn  from  modern  problems,  from 
the  present  with  its  intellectual  and  social  urgencies,  to 
the  past,  or  to  a  mystic  invented  world.  It  was  easy  for 
D'Annunzio  and  his  disciples  to  turn  backward  in  their 
search  for  beauty  and  glory,  since  the  worship  of  the  na- 
tional past  is  so  universal  in  Italy.  "  Om*  glorious  past,  the 
glories  of  Italy's  history",  —  these  are  phrases  to  conjure 
with  among  these  fervent  poets  who  see  in  themselves  the 
heritors  of  the  "grandeur  that  was  Rome."  The  presence 
of  monuments  and  collections  and  the  stream  of  pilgrims 
from  all  the  rest  of  the  world  in  a  never-ending  procession 
of  exclamatory  admiration,  —  these  things  have  united  to 
nourish  in  the  Italians  this  worship  of  their  own  former 


236  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OP   ITALY 

greatness.  D'Annunzio  turned  to  the  past  because  in  that 
jBeld  he  found  freedom  for  the  expression  of  his  unhuman 
dreams  of  beauty  and  of  power. 

This  "glorious"  Italian  past  is  the  fruitful  source  of 
hundreds  of  dramas,  a  source  visited  not  only  by  D'Annun- 
zio, but  by  Benelli,  Bracco,  Rovetta,  Cossa,  Manzoni; 
practically  every  modern  dramatist  has  raked  over  the 
dead  leaves  in  the  shadowy  valleys  of  bygone  Italian 
history. 

Futurism,  from  the  first  moment  vociferous,  is  the  re- 
action against  aestheticism  in  all  its  aspects  but  especially 
in  its  preoccupation  with  history.  This  cult  of  the  past 
in  Italy  explains  the  fact  that  there  and  there  alone 
futurism  has  offered  a  passionate  programme  and  has 
aroused  a  burning  protest.  ^Estheticism  is  out  of  contact 
with  life ;  futurism  clamors  for  a  direct  and  vital  relation 
between  art  and  life  as  it  is,  modern,  industrial,  wealthy, 
hectic.  The  spirit  the  futurists  would  exorcise  is  that 
of  D'Annunzio,  the  perennial  the  ever-recurring  dilettante. 
"The  movement,  being  largely  a  reaction,  was  largely  a 
merely  negative  manifestation.  The  attitude  was :  Since 
the  Passatisti  was  obvious,  we  will  be  obscure ;  since  they 
were  grandiloquent  with  faith,  we  will  struggle  from  wrong 
to  despair  and  beyond.  Since  with  them  sexual  matters 
were  more  or  less  fig-leafed,  we  will  trace  the  minutes  and 
seconds  of  our  sexual  sophistication.  .  .  .  Above  all  we 
will  hate  the  bourgeoisie." 

Futurism  as  a  movement  first  came  to  public  notice  about 
1908  when  the  novel  Mafarka  the  Futurist  was  suppressed 
and  its  author,  F.  T.  Marinetti,  prosecuted  at  Milan  for 
offending  against  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  com- 
mimity.    His  trial  was  the  occasion  of  a  demonstration. 


FTJTUEISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS  237 

Among  others  who  spoke  in  Marinetti's  favor  was  the 
veteran  critic  and  dramatist,  Luigi  Capuana.  The  trial 
resulted  in  a  triumphant  acquittal  for  Marinetti,  who  was 
carried  off  by  his  friends  shouting  "Long  live  Futurism." 
Soon  after  appeared  in  the  Paris  Figaro  the  manifesto  of 
the  new  school,  a  curiously  eloquent  and  logical  document 
in  which,  allowing  for  the  element  of  reclame  and  a  certain 
bid  for  notoriety,  one  may  find  a  summary  of  the  tenets  of 
the  new  school. 

It  is  the  cult  of  energy  and  modernity.  Speed  is  their 
supreme  beauty.  "A  racing  automobile  is  more  beautiful 
than  the  Victory  of  Samothrace."  Under  the  vigorous 
futurist  massage  Italy  is  to  lose  her  intellectual  and  moral 
flabbiness  brought  on  by  a  passive  contemplation  of  the 
past  in  place  of  an  active  participation  in  the  present. 
"Her  works  of  art  and  museums  she  shall  sell  and  shall 
purchase  in  their  place  cannon,  aeroplanes,  dreadnoughts, 
and  dirigibles.  Venice  shall  be  blown  into  atoms,  Rome 
shall  be  cleansed  of  her  ruins  and  remnants.  Make  way 
for  factories,  fortifications  and  machines."  Force  is  to 
rule  the  world,  all  the  latest  inventions  of  human  in- 
genuity are  to  be  directed  toward  material  progress. 
Even  poetry  is  to  be  "a  violent  assault  against  unknown 
forces  to  summon  them  to  lie  down  at  the  feet  of  man." 
Finally,  "they  would  destroy  museums,  libraries  and  fight 
against  moralism,  feminism  and  all  utilitarian  cowardice !" 
In  a  word,  the  futurist  repudiates  at  the  same  time  history 
and  art  in  the  name  of  the  present  and  the  real. 

The  futurists  have  invaded  nearly  every  realm  of  art,  — 
literature,  painting,  sculpture  and  music.  Architecture 
they  have  not  yet  attempted ;  here  the  necessity  for  utility 
has  probably  discouraged  their  peculiar  experiments.    In 


238  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA    OF   ITALY 

the  other  arts  they  have  introduced  striking  innovations. 
In  music,  for  example,  the  orchestra  has  been  augmented 
by  instruments  to  reproduce  the  sound  of  rain,  of  auto- 
mobiles, of  railway  trains,  the  roar  of  factories  in  operation, 
and  by  rombatore,  gorgoliatore,  fischiatore,  scrocciatore  and 
others. 

The  futurists  of  the  Manifesto  are  playing  with  every- 
thing they  touch.  Life  is  a  great  game,  a  huge  joke,  even 
the  most  serious  things  being  made  occasion  for  sport 
and  gaiety.  Sickness  and  sorrow  are  subjects  for  jest; 
the  hospital  patients,  for  example,  are  to  be  dressed  in 
fantastic  costumes,  painted  in  hideous  and  ludicrous 
wise  to  excite  the  laughter  of  fellow  patients;  funerals 
are  to  be  made  over  into  masked  processions;  churches 
shall  be  turned  into  drinking  rooms,  bars,  roller-skating 
rinks,  theatres,  Turkish  baths ;  against  every  sorrow  one 
must  take  a  dose  of  joy.  Their  programme  for  the  conduct 
of  life  is  to  them,  as  to  us,  a  colossal  joke,  but  nevertheless 
there  runs  through  it  "  a  certain  wild  reasonableness  which 
makes  us  take  it,  if  with  some  amusement,  at  least  also 
with  some  seriousness." 

In  their  reform  of  the  arts,  the  futurists  have  not  for- 
gotten the  theatre,  —  the  manifesto  containing  a  pro- 
gramme for  the  rehabilitation  of  the  drama.  "We  have 
a  profound  disgust  for  the  contemporary  theatre  (verse, 
prose,  and  music)  because  it  wavers  stupidly  between 
historic  reconstruction  (a  pastiche  or  a  plagiarism)  and 
the  photographic  reproduction  of  our  daily  life."  On  the 
other  hand  we  assiduously  frequent  the  Theatre  of 
Varieties  (music  halls,  cafes-chantants  or  equestrian  cir- 
cuses) which  to-day  offer  the  only  theatrical  spectacles 
worthy  of  a  truly  futuristic  spirit.     "Why  the  Variety 


FUTURISM  AND   OTHER  ISMS  239 

theatre?"  one  may  ask.  The  reply  in  summary  is  this. 
It  has  no  traditions  to  hamper  it ;  it  is  under  the  necessity 
of  exciting  and  pleasing  by  continually  more  wonderful 
feats  of  strength  and  skill,  wit  and  intelligence;  the 
public  takes  part  in  the  action  by  accompanying  the 
orchestra,  communicating  with  the  actor  with  unexpected 
quips  and  extravagant  dialogue  and  the  like,  and  finally 
it  destroys  unwholesome  traditions.  "  It  is  an  instructive 
school  of  sincerity  for  the  male  because  it  strips  from  the 
woman  all  veils,  all  the  phrases,  the  sighs,  the  romantic 
sobs  which  deform  and  mask  her.  It  brings  into  promi- 
nence, instead,  all  the  admirable  animal  qualities  of  the 
woman,  her  powers  of  seduction,  of  capture,  of  perfidy  and 
of  resistance.  It  systematically  depreciates  ideal  love  and 
the  romantic  obsession,  which  has  repeated  to  satiety, 
with  the  monotony  and  automaticity  of  a  daily  business, 
the  nostalgic  langours  of  passion.  It  extravagantly 
mechanises  sentiment,  depreciates  and  healthily  scorns 
the  obsession  of  carnal  possession,  abases  voluptuousness 
to  the  natural  function,  deprives  it  of  all  mystery,  of  all 
anguish  and  of  all  anti-hygienic  idealism";  and  finally 
the  Variety  Theatre  attacks  the  fundamentals  of  the 
drama  as  it  is  now  conceived.  "It  destroys  the  Solemn, 
the  Sacred,  the  Serious,  the  Sublime  of  Art  with  a  capital 
A.  It  collaborates  in  the  futurist  destruction  of  the  im- 
mortal masterpieces,  plagiarising  them,  parodying  them, 
presenting  them  just  anyhow,  without  scenery  and  with- 
out compunction,  just  as  an  ordinary  'turn.'  We  ap- 
prove unconditionally  the  execution  of  Parsifal  in  forty 
minutes  which  is  in  preparation  for  a  large  London 
music  hall." 
But  even  the  variety  theatre  does  not  completely  satisfy 


240         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

the  futurists.  It,  too,  has  its  traditional  characters  and 
its  beaten  tracks  which  must  be  avoided.  It  is  necessary 
"to  exaggerate  notably  its  extravagance,  to  multiply 
contrast  and  to  make  the  improbable  and  the  absurd  reign 
as  sovereigns  on  the  stage."  Certain  practical  suggestions 
are :  "  Oblige  the  singers  to  paint  their  bare  necks,  arms 
and  especially  their  hair  in  all  the  colors  hitherto  neg- 
lected as  a  means  of  seduction  —  green  hair,  violet  arms, 
azure  breast,  orange  chignon,  etc.  Interrupt  the  singer, 
making  her  continue  with  revolutionary  or  anarchistic 
discourse.  Sprinkle  a  romanza  with  insults  and  bad 
words.  Make  the  spectators  of  the  pit,  the  boxes,  and  the 
gallery  take  part  in  the  action.  Here  are  a  few  additional 
suggestions :  put  strong  glue  on  some  of  the  stalls,  so  that 
the  spectator,  man  or  woman,  who  remains  glued  down, 
may  arouse  general  hilarity ;  sell  the  same  place  to  ten 
different  people;  hence  obstructions,  arguments  and 
altercations.  Sprinkle  the  stalls  with  powders  which 
produce  itching,  sneezing,  etc."  Here  end  the  constructive 
suggestions  of  the  manifesto,  but  some  of  its  destructive 
recommendations  are:  "Systematically  prostitute  all 
classic  art  upon  the  stage,  representing  for  example  all 
the  Greek,  French  and  Itg-lian  tragedies  condensed  and 
comically  mixed  up.  Enliven  the  works  of  Beethoven, 
Wagner,  et  al.  by  introducing  into  them  Neapolitan  songs. 
Execute  a  Beethoven  symphony  backwards,  beginning 
with  the  last  note.  Reduce  Shakespeare  to  a  single  act, 
etc.  Encourage  in  every  way  the  genre  of  the  American 
eccentrics,  their  effects  of  exalting  grotesque,  of  terrifying 
dynamism,  their  clumsy  finds,  their  enormous  brutalities, 
their  waistcoats  full  of  surprises  and  their  pantaloons  deep 
as  the  holds  of  ships,  from  which  issue  forth,  with  thou- 


FUTURISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS        241 

sands  of  other  things,  the  great  futurist  hilarity  which  is 
to  rejuvenate  the  face  of  the  world." 

This  is  not  to  be  taken  seriously  in  detail.  Yet  these 
suggestions,  grotesque  and  insane  as  some  of  them  seem, 
cannot  be  dismissed  as  unimportant.  They  are  only  the 
reductio  ad  ahsurdum  of  a  legitimate  and  righteously 
bitter  protest  against  existing  drama,  weighed  down  under 
the  incubus  of  various  isms  and  ologies,  sinking  under  the 
weight  of  traditions  outworn,  staggering  with  the  burden 
of  stardom  and  commercialism,  ignoring  reality  or  foolishly 
subservient  to  it. 

Other  writers  suggest  other  means  of  redemption. 
Gordon  Craig  looks  to  the  marionettes,  D'Annunzio 
suggests  the  cinematograph,  but  the  futurists  advise  the 
amplification  of  vaudeville.  The  movement  and  its 
doctrines  are  an  Italian  counterpart  of  the  German  Ueber- 
brettl  movement  of  the  early  1900's. 

Although  Futurism  is  by  no  means  a  one-man  movement, 
F.  T.  Marinetti  is  its  founder  and  prime  mover;  he  is 
now,  however,  repudiated  by  one  wing.  It  was  he  who 
issued  the  manifesto  and  who  has  given  the  world  the 
typical  futurist  plays.  The  Bleeding  Mummy  {La  Momie 
Sanglante  —  yohne  dramatique)  and  better  still  King 
Hubbub  {II  Re  Baldoria)  (1909),  which  almost  created  a 
riot  when  it  was  played  at  Lugne-Poe's  Th64tre  de 
rCEuvre  in  1909.  It  is  a  huge  farce,  a  satire  of  a  ma- 
terialistic regime  and  "especially  a  grandiose  carica- 
ture of  parliamentarism."  The  action  passes  "in  the 
kingdom  of  the  Block-heads  at  a  vaguely  medieval 
epoch." 

King  Baldoria  is  chosen  King  because  he  is  the  fattest. 
His  Kingdom  is  occupied  solely  with  eating,  and  as  the 


242         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

play  opens  the  women  are  all  leaving  because  it  is  too  gross 
for  them.  The  people  are  starved  that  the  King  and  his 
councillors  may  feast,  so  that  when  his  chief  councillor 
dies,  they  are  on  the  verge  of  revolt.  The  King  gives 
over  his  government  to  four  Marmitons  who  retire  into 
the  palace  to  prepare  a  new  broth  called  Universal 
Happiness.  While  they  are  waiting,  however,  the  King 
dies  of  hunger  and  the  people,  maddened  by  the  smell  of 
cooking,  break  into  the  palace,  and  not  satisfied  with  the 
watery  stuff  the  Marmitons  are  cooking,  devour  the  cooks 
themselves.  From  this  point  the  farce  becomes  quite 
incomprehensible,  but  finally  everybody  dies  and  a  baby 
vampire  sucks  their  blood. 

This,  as  nearly  as  it  can  be  extricated,  is  the  "plot"  of 
King  Hubbub,  but  three  or  four  others  might  be  equally 
well  derived  from  the  amorphous  mass.  The  only  sane 
person  is  the  idealistic  poet,  the  Idiot,  who  harangues  the 
people  from  the  top  of  a  tree  whither  he  has  been  chased 
by  the  mob. 

Marinetti  together  with  Bruno  Corra,  Emilio  Settimelli, 
G.  Boccioni,  and  E.  Corradini  are  the  only  futurist  drama- 
tists who  have  printed  plays;  most  of  the  group  have 
confined  themselves  to  verse.  Even  Signor  Marinetti  has, 
in  the  expressive  German  phrase,  cooked  better  than  he 
has  eaten.  His  theory  far  outstrips  in  daring  his  practice. 
Just  because  his  creed  is  so  extravagant,  he  has  been 
obliged,  using  another  famous  German  phrase,  to  treat 
it  as  a  scrap  of  paper.  But  his  theory  is  almost  com- 
prehensible, while  his  giant  farce  is  a  whirling  jumble 
of  sense  and  nonsense,  sanity  and  insanity.  Futurist 
drama,  if  there  could  be  a  positive  creation  based  on 
this  programme  of  negations,  seems  to  promise  little. 


FUTURISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS        243 

But  as  a  leaven  for  the  heavy  lump  of  the  dramatic  future 
this  protest  has  real  value. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  the  movement  called  the  Art 
Theatre  as  it  has  taken  shape  in  Germany,  France,  Russia 
and  England  is,  as  in  the  case  of  all  movements,  partly 
new  creative  impulse  and  partly  reaction  and  protest. 
It  was  in  its  inception  an  appeal  for  the  cultivation  and 
utilization  of  the  plastic  and  pictorial,  as  well  as  the 
literary  side  of  drama.  The  realistic  theatre  had  gone  to 
the  final  dismal  extreme  in  the  matter  of  inartistic  settings 
—  not  an  artist,  but  a  furniture  shop  designed  the  sets  — 
oh,  true  to  life  perchance,  but  false  to  art,  and  traitor  to 
beauty !  The  actors  sat  and  talked,  or  walked  and  talked ; 
in  a  certain  play  of  Strindberg's,  two  men  in  ordinary  frock 
coats  sat  beside  a  stove,  a  hideous  north-Europe  porcelain 
stove,  and  talked  for  three  quarters  of  an  hour,  —  pene- 
trating, analytic  talk,  to  be  sure,  but  leaving  much  to  be 
desired  as  dramatic  spectacle.  Northern  actors  needed 
to  be  trained  in  the  use  of  their  bodies  for  the  interpretation 
of  emotion;  northern  audiences  needed  to  be  taught  to 
appreciate  and  to  demand  artistic  beauty  in  the  stage 
spectacle;  dancing  as  dramatic  art  needed  to  reassert 
its  claim;  color,  light,  shadow,  surface,  space,  fabric 
waited  to  be  utilized  in  the  emotional  ensemble  of  the 
stage. 

This  indicates  in  outline  the  idea  promulgated  and  made 
familiar  to  students  of  the  stage  by  Gordon  Craig,  the 
prime  mover  in  the  art  theatre.  In  Italy,  to  be  sure,  there 
was  not  precisely  the  same  need  for  these  changes.  The 
Italian  actor  has  always  been  facile  and  eloquent  in  the 
use  of  his  body ;  with  all  Italians  gesture  is  the  twin  sister 
of  language  and  posture  the  instinctive  interpretation  of 


244         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

emotion.  Audiences  trained  in  the  vivacious  and  ex- 
pressive acting  of  the  Commedia  deU'Arte,  their  eyes  filled 
from  day  to  day  with  the  masterpieces  of  Italian  archi- 
tecture, with  the  frescos  of  Michelangelo,  of  Raphael,  of 
Tintoretto,  of  Veronese,  with  the  picturesque,  one  might 
say  pictorial  Italian  landscape,  with  the  formal  and  beau- 
tiful ritual  of  the  church,  having  a  love  of  a  show,  both 
instinctive  and  handed  down  from  Roman  times,  and 
a  musical  ear,  —  such  audiences  do  not  need  training  from 
the  ground  up  in  the  appreciation  of  drama  as  a  spectacle. 
A  theatre  on  the  lines  of  Reinhardt's  Deutsches  Theatre 
or  his  Kammerspiel,  or  the  Art  Theater  in  Moscow  could 
not  perform  in  Italy  the  same  important  function  that  they 
have  performed  in  their  own  countries.  In  Italy,  then, 
as  might  be  expected,  the  art-theatre  attempts  have  been 
sporadic  and  not  entirely  successful.  Gordon  Craig, 
living  in  Florence,  has  maintained  a  house  of  his  own  where 
worshippers  at  his  shrine,  a  bit  hectic  and  showing  things 
artistic  a  bit  out  of  proportion,  gather  to  witness  esoteric 
performances  in  all  languages.  But  for  the  most  part 
the  movement  in  Italy  has  taken  the  sound  and  hopeful 
form  of  bettering  conditions  in  the  existing  theatres. 
And  as  has  been  said  in  another  connection,  conditions 
in  existing  Italian  theatres  need  bettering,  for  in  some  ways 
the  properties,  scenery  and  other  material  appointments 
of  the  Italian  commercial  theatres  are  the  worst  in  the 
world.  The  old  shabby  theatres  themselves,  the  poverty 
of  the  individual  companies,  the  frequent  packings  and 
journeyings  all  helped  the  general  shabbiness  of  the 
theatrical  belongings.  The  Italians,  to  be  sure,  are 
content  with  less  elaborate  scenic  illusion  than  other 
audiences,  perhaps  just  because  their  imaginations  are 


FUTURISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS         245 

trained  on  beauty  elsewhere.  But  we  may  say  that  the 
technical  art  theatre  has  not  arrived  in  Italy. 

And  so  with  Futurism  we  close  the  list  of  isms  and  reach 
the  pinnacle  of  modernity;  and  with  the  Art-Theatre 
movement  we  come  to  the  end  of  the  "movements"  by 
which  the  Italian  drama  has  passed  from  point  to  point, 
having  examined  in  our  progress  many  dramas  and  en- 
countered many  dramatists.  Preliminary  to  an  attempt  at 
a  final  summary  it  would  seem  well  to  bring  into  closer 
juxtaposition  some  of  the  facts  and  ideas  treated  in  the 
separate  chapters  of  our  discussion.  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes's  whimsical  verdict  that  for  certain  physical 
maladies  the  doctor  should  have  been  called  three  hundred 
years  ago  has  a  scientific  basis  as  true  for  criticism  as  for 
medicine ;  to  understand  and  to  place  the  phenomena  we 
encounter  to-day  we  must  take  into  account  certain  im- 
portant seedtimes  of  the  past.  A  brief  run  through  the 
last  hundred  years  of  Italian  drama  will  clarify  and 
organize  our  impressions  of  the  contemporary  period. 

The  Italian  theatre  received  an  immense  impulse  in  the 
eighteenth  century  from  Goldoni  and  Alfieri,  the  one 
deriving  his  inspiration  from  the  classics  and  producing 
noble  plays  in  the  classic  mood,  the  other  glorifying  the 
popular  drama  into  a  wonderful  native  comedy.  These 
two  launched  the  drama  on  a  noble  course,  but  by  way  of 
launching  it  endowed  Italy  with  a  highly  artificial  art, 
genuinely  eighteenth  century  in  its  conception  and  working 
out.  Beautiful  it  was  but  rhetorical  and  out  of  contact 
with  the  real  world.  The  business  of  the  romanticists 
who  followed  was  to  clear  the  stage  of  the  debris  of  old 
systems,  of  artificial  obstructions  and  to  make  way  for 
the  free  expression  of  individual  emotion.    The  ancient 


246         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

taboos  in  technic  and  subject-matter  seemed  deadening 
and  useless  to  Manzoni,  Niccolini,  Vineenzo  Monti, 
Silvio  Pellico  and  the  Pindemonte  brothers;  their  god 
was  Shakespeare,  interpreted  or  rather  misinterpreted  in 
the  Italian  manner.  His  heroism,  his  mysticism,  his 
gigantic  qualities  became  so  many  fetishes.  New  char- 
acteristics invaded  the  drama,  the  subject-matter  derived 
from  the  Middle  Ages,  patriotism,  vague  humanitarianism, 
the  timid  precursor  of  the  later  interests  in  social  prob- 
lems ;  more  serious  attention  to  local  color  and  chronism. 
But  we  must  decide  that  they  were  greatest  in  their 
lyric  qualities  and  that  their  plays  are  better  as  poems 
than  as  dramas. 

The  next  generation  of  playwrights,  those  of  the  mid- 
century,  bridged  the  gap  between  dying  romanticism  and 
nascent  realism.  They  continued  the  reforms  of  their 
immediate  predecessors,  but  they  expanded  and  heightened 
them  always  in  the  direction  of  modernity;  when  they 
reconstitute  a  bygone  epoch,  it  is  with  authentic  and 
authenticated  details;  social  problems  came  under  dis- 
cussion in  Giacometti's  Civil  Death;  contemporary  life  is 
mirrored  in  his  Poet  and  the  Dancing  Girl,  in  Ferrari's 
Prose  and  The  Duel,  and  in  Torelli's  Husbands.  But 
Neo-Romanticism  is  typically  represented  rather  by 
Leopold  Marenco  with  his  medieval,  sentimental  tales 
of  romantic  love  and  chivalry,  by  Felice  Cavalotti,  who 
followed  in  Marenco's  footsteps,  and  perhaps  best  of  all 
by  Pietro  Cossa,  who  in  his  reincarnations  and  reinter- 
pretations  of  antiquity  stands  head  and  shoulders  above 
his  contemporaries.  Eminently  a  man  of  the  theatre, 
he  was  also  a  dramatic  thinker  of  importance.  Truth 
became  a  battle-cry  with  him,  —  truth  to  history.    His 


FUTtmiSM  AND   OTHER  ISMS  247 

Nero  is  documented  from  one  end  to  the  other.  But  Neo- 
Romanticism  was  stillborn,  and  not  even  the  talent  of 
Giuseppe  Giacosa  could  breathe  life  into  its  death- 
smitten  members.  His  earlier  medieval  dramas,  The 
Game  of  Chess,  The  Red  Count,  The  Brothers-dn-Arms, 
and  the  rest,  are  at  one  and  the  same  time  the  culminating 
point  and  the  swan  song  of  expiring  Neo-Romanticism. 

About  the  middle  of  the  eighties  a  triple  influence 
began  to  make  itself  felt  in  the  drama :  that  of  the  French 
realists,  Dumas  ^/*  and  Emile  Augier ;  that  of  the  Verists, 
the  Sicihan  writers  Verga  and  Capuana;  and  that  of 
Henrik  Ibsen. 

The  realistic  school  has  produced  many  of  the  best 
things  in  the  drama.  Giacosa's  masterpieces  were  written 
under  their  impulse  —  As  the  Leaves,  notably;  Bracco, 
too,  derived  inspiration  from  this  Gallic  fount.  The 
Frenchmen  gave  sanction  and  justification  to  the  new 
tendency  to  make  the  stage  a  laboratory  for  social  experi- 
ment if  not  a  lecture  platform  for  social  theory;  they 
contributed  largely  to  the  foundation  of  the  new  thesis 
drama.  But  the  future  lay  with  Verism.  Many  worked 
in  this  so  fertile  field,  but  it  was  Giuseppe  Giacosa  who 
brought  home  the  harvest,  who  in  plain  words  established 
the  ideas  and  the  methods  of  the  Verists  on  the  actual 
stage,  producing  in  Sad  Loves  one  of  those  photographic, 
unsparing  studies  that  embody  the  ultimate  plea  of  the 
Verists,  at  the  same  time  presenting  a  good,  interesting 
and  actable  play.  The  work  of  this  group  cannot  be 
better  stated  than  in  the  words  of  Benedetto  Croce :  "They 
tried  in  novels,  tales  and  dramas  to  represent  objectively 
what  place  men  hold  in  hard  reality,  human  passions 
without  veils  and  without  fantastic  transfigurations,  the 


248         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

real  conditions  of  the  different  social  classes  and  the  differ- 
ent regions  of  Italy;  and  they  dreamed  of  joining  art 
with  science  in  tales,  novels  and  scientific  dramas,  built 
on  observation,  on  experiment  and  on  'human  docu- 
ments.' Certainly  their  programme  was  a  mistake. 
Science  and  art  are  irreconcilable,  not  because  they  are 
averse  to  each  other  but  diverse.  And  their  work  was 
anything  but  objective,  their  representation  of  life  any- 
thing but  complete,  rather  eminently  one-sided ;  man  was 
abased  to  an  animal,  society  to  a  pack  of  wild  beasts 
fighting  each  other  for  prey,  food,  and  women.  Few  of 
these  Verists  had  sufficient  creative  force  to  attain  the 
artistic  heaven.  But  granted  their  illusion,  what  honesty 
of  purpose  on  the  part  of  both  the  greatest  and  the  smallest ; 
what  honest  efforts  to  realize  in  reality  their  dream ! 
Whoever  will  glance  over  the  volumes  of  the  Verist  school 
—  if  he  is  often  offended  at  the  candors  of  perceptions 
not  yet  translated  into  art  —  never  loses  contact  with 
reality  and  life."  None  of  the  writers  who  came  after  the 
Verists  could  ignore  their  theory  and  their  accomplish- 
ment. They  might  lay  emphasis  on  other  things,  on 
history,  or  on  milieux,  or  on  psychological  observation, 
but  their  criterion  was  the  criterion  of  the  Verists  and  of 
all  modern  art,  —  life. 

As  to  the  third  influence,  that  of  Henrik  Ibsen,  the  great 
Norwegian  could  not  make  the  appeal  in  emotional  Italy 
that  he  made  in  more  intellectual  northern  countries. 
The  snows  clinging  to  the  hoary  top  of  this  mountain 
peak  chilled  the  susceptible  Latin  natures.  They  never 
understood  him  as  a  philosopher,  though  they  appreciated 
his  superlative  ability  as  dramatic  technician,  and  his 
supreme  logic  found  in  them  a  sympathetic  response. 


FUTURISM  AND   OTHER  ISMS  249 

The  play  of  psychological  analysis  along  Ibsenite  lines 
became  the  fashion. 

Gerolamo  Rovetta  wrote  both  romantic-historical 
dramas  in  the  style  of  Romanticism,  and  ultra-realistic 
contemporary  plays  of  which  Dorina's  Trilogy  is  the 
signal  example.  Marco  Praga  is  psychologically  inclined 
and  interprets  his  master  Ibsen  to  an  Italian  clientele. 
The  women  dramatists,  Amalia  Rosselli  and  Teresah 
Ubertis,  are  even  more  inclined  toward  the  Ibsenian 
intro-analysis  and  in  A  Soul  and  The  Judge  produced 
two  notable  plays  in  the  master's  manner;  Butti  rep- 
resents a  French  and  Norwegian  tendency  tempered  by 
Italian  qualities,  his  masterpiece,  the  trilogy  of  The 
Atheists,  discussing  in  essentially  modern  fashion  the 
relation  between  science  and  faith.  The  Antona- 
Traversi  brothers,  Camillo  and  Giannino,  follow  Praga's 
lead,  but  the  latter  adds  lightness  of  wit  and  delicacy  of 
touch  in  treating  the  upper  classes,  braced  and  stiffened 
by  a  fierce  irony  worthy  of  Parini. 

Roberto  Bracco  began  under  the  influence  of  Dumas 
fils,  Ibsen  and  Becque.  A  little  later  Hauptmann  was 
added  to  his  models.  Like  the  Antona-Traversis,  his 
range  of  subject-matter  extends  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest  social  level,  from  The  Unfaithful  Woman  to  Don 
Pietro  Caruso.  He  even  concerned  himself  with  the  social 
problems  which  modern  Italy  must  grapple. 

Alfredo  Oriani,  Dario  Niccodemi,  S.  Zambaldi,  Wash- 
ington Borg,  Sabatino  Lopez,  Alfredo  Testoni,  Luigi 
Pirandello  and  Augusto  Novelli,  —  these  are  the  names  of 
playwrights  distinguished  among  the  younger  men,  who 
while  they  have  not  added  anything  signal  to  the  drama 
either  in  theory  or  practice,  have  immensely  enriched  it 


250         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

in  local  color  and  specific  instances.  Since  the  beginning 
of  the  Great  War  there  has  been  no  change  in  the  dramatic 
situation;  all  the  first-rate  men  have  been  silent  or  pro- 
ducing plays  written  before  the  conflagration.  The  host 
of  war  plays  which  have  sprung  up  have  been  marked 
rather  by  a  superficial  emotional  appeal  than  a  sound 
dramatic  merit.  Apart  from  the  stream,  related  to  it 
chiefly  as  revulsion  from  its  principles  and  revolt  against 
its  technic,  stand  the  aesthetic  dramatists,  led  of  course 
by  D'Annunzio,  the  divo  Gabriele  of  his  compatriots,  who 
carries  over  into  drama  the  fame  he  won  in  other  literary 
fields,  whose  overweening  personality,  whose  vast  erudi- 
tion, whose  amazing  virtuosity  and  more  lately  whose 
fiery  and  audacious  nationalism  constitute  him  so  interest- 
ing a  figure  that  it  is  all  imputed  to  him  for  dramatic 
righteousness.  Following  in  his  train  is  a  large  disciple- 
ship  of  poetic  dramatists,  of  whom  Sem  Benelli  is  a 
better  playwright  though  a  less  important  literary  artist 
than  his  master.  At  the  moment  the  future  of  Italian 
poetry  drama  would  seem  to  lie  with  Benelli,  though  his 
latest  plays  have  not  quite  kept  the  promise  of  his  early 
successes. 

Such  is  the  long,  rich  roll  of  names,  titles,  movements, 
isms,  influences.  Are  there  some  crystallizing  principles 
that  run  through  the  whole  mass?  Are  there  certain 
banks  that  channel  the  currents  into  a  common  stream? 
Can  we  find  certain  features  that  bring  it  to  pass  that  it  is 
not  only  drama,  but  Italian  drama?  Inevitably  the 
dramatic  writing  of  Italy  partakes  of  the  characteristic 
qualities  of  all  Italian  literature.  On  the  general  aspects 
of  modern  literature  in  Italy  both  Arthur  Livingston 
and  Bendetto  Croce  have  written  so  illuminatingly  that 


FUTURISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS        251 

we  cannot  do  better  than  to  accept  their  guidance. 
Livingston  speaks  of  three  characteristics  found  in  all 
recent  Italian  literature :  a  certain  national  even  national- 
istic spirit  becoming  in  many  cases  localism;  sentimen- 
tality, by  which  the  Italian  means  "tenderness  of  heart, 
responsiveness  to  shades  of  feeling,  sympathy  with  other 
people  —  what  Americans  call  humanity";  and  as  a 
third  characteristic,  Catholic  idealism.  Croce  names  as 
a  further  quality  its  insincerita,  by  which  he  means  lack 
of  conviction  about  anything, — an  "insincerity"  due  first 
to  the  neo-Catholic  and  pragmatic  reaction  against  the 
worshipped  rationalizing  the  deified  logic  of  the  philosophy 
that  flowed  from  Kant  and  Fichte,  due  to  the  denial  of  the 
value  of  the  intellectual  processes ;  and  due  in  the  second 
place  to  the  reduction  to  impotence  of  the  middle  classes 
through  the  rise  of  the  lower  orders.  "  The  Bourgeoisie 
losing  in  the  struggle  with  the  proletariat  takes  refuge  in 
pessimism,  in  assertion  of  the  futility  of  existence.  This 
double  sin,  intellectual  and  moral,  leads  to  a  third  and 
creates  that  main  quality  of  Italian  literature,  —  that 
*  ego  ',  that  *  egoarchia',  that  '  egocentricity  '  which  is  so 
much  a  part  of  contemporary  life." 

The  quality  of  nationalism  which  Livingston  names 
first  as  noticeable  in  an  Italian  literature  we  have  observed 
at  work  among  the  dramatists,  sometimes  working  dis- 
astrously. We  have  noticed  how  commonly  the  play- 
wrights have  chosen  to  look  backward,  to  recreate  a 
glorious  past,  to  call  up  older  ideals  and  bygone  achieve- 
ments, neglecting  or  ignoring  the  present  with  its  vital, 
pulsating  struggles  and  contentions.  Even  this  present- 
day  patriotism  has  constantly  a  backward  reference; 
they  are  burning,  bleeding  and  dying  to  establish  the  old 


252         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

Roman  boundaries  of  Italy,  to  make  the  "beautiful 
Adriatic  once  more  an  Italian  lake" ;  they  dream  gorgeous 
imperialistic  dreams  of  national  dominance.  Now  these 
are  epic  themes,  —  material  for  lyric  or  rhapsody,  perhaps, 
but  not  for  drama.  Drama  is  the  art  form  of  a  cooperating 
or  struggling  democracy,  not  that  of  a  triumphant  or 
even  of  a  defeated  imperialism.  It  voices  the  hopes  and 
defeats,  possibly  the  dreams  and  ideals  of  actual  living 
society,  not  the  memories  of  however  glorious  a  past. 
That  the  historic  genius  of  Italy  has  not  been  dramatic 
becomes  plain  when  we  call  for  names  of  dramatic  artists 
to  place  beside  those  of  Dante,  Boiardo,  Pulci,  Tasso, 
Ariosto;  or  beside  those  of  Petrarch,  Carducci  and 
Leopardi.  As  in  other  days,  so  now  in  the  modern  move- 
ment the  most  distinguished  and  distinctive  pieces  of 
literature  are  novels  and  lyrics. 

This  national-historical  egocentricity  not  only  guides  the 
Italian  dramatist  in  his  choice  of  subject-matter;  it 
also  colors  and  inflates  the  material  he  has  chosen.  To  a 
proper  understanding  of  Manzoni's  plays,  of  Cossa's, 
of  Rovetta's  Romanticism,  of  Giacosa's  The  Red  Count,  of 
Sem  Benelli's  Supper  of  Jokes,  of  D'Annunzio's  Francesca 
da  Rimini,  The  Ship  or  Glory  an  extensive  erudition  is 
necessary,  to  which  one  must  add  much  space  and  much 
thunder  created  by  the  Egoarch  himself.  And  always  in 
the  distant  background  stalks  the  mighty  unlaid  ghost  of 
Rome  and  in  the  nearer  background  lurks  the  mystic 
shade  of  the  medieval  past  with  Dante  as  its  undying 
prophet.  It  is  small  wonder  that  this  preoccupation 
produced  the  violent  counterblast  of  the  futurists  against 
the  past  and  all  the  Passatisti.  It  is  only  natural  that  this 
national  consciousness  should  at  times  and  under  certain 


FUTURISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS        253 

conditions  become  regional  or  local.  Nowhere  has  local 
tradition  been  stronger  than  in  Italy ;  the  dialect  theatres 
have  been  numerous  and  flourishing,  —  Rome,  Naples, 
Milan,  Bologna,  Venice,  Sicily  having  each  its  dialect 
drama;  Pirandello,  Di  Giacomo,  Bersezio,  Testoni, 
Gallina,  Verga,  —  each  presents  and  interprets  the  local 
life  of  his  own  region.  In  this  regional  art,  there  is  a 
sturdiness  and  a  vitality  entirely  lacking  in  the  drama  of 
cosmopolitan  life,  even  when  produced  by  the  same 
artists.  As  drama  it  has  the  disadvantage  of  being  a 
closed  book  to  all  not  acquainted  with  provincial  Italy; 
indeed,  the  intimate  meanings  and  subtle  beauties  of  a  play 
in  a  given  dialect  escape  an  auditor  from  another  Italian 
province. 

Another  outgrowth  of  the  overemphasis  of  nationalism 
is  provincialism  of  attitude,  which  even  a  wide  inter- 
national experience  is  not  sufficient  to  root  out  of  an  artist's 
work.  Constantly  in  Butti  and  in  Bracco,  for  instance, 
the  reactions  of  their  personages  to  situations  are  not  so 
human  as  Italian.  Contrast,  for  example,  the  universality 
of  Ibsen  in  The  Doll's  House,  in  Emperor  and  Galilean, 
even  in  Peer  Gynt  with  Praga's  peculiarly  local  problems 
and  solutions,  with  Giacosa's  castigation  of  faults  exclu- 
sively or  peculiarly  Italian,  with  Bracco's  solution  or 
rather  his  refusal  to  solve  the  economic  problems  embodied 
in  The  Bight  to  Lite.  Ibsen  thinks  in  terms  of  the  world, 
Italians  in  terms  of  the  Peninsula. 

As  to  the  quality  of  sentimentality  (so  poorly  represented 
by  the  English  word),  this  in  the  soul  of  the  present-day 
Italian  all  too  often  takes  the  form  of  gloom,  sadness, 
despair.  If  he  be  artistic  he  has  exhausted  himself  in 
sestheticism  and  has  no  vitality  left  for  action.    If  he  be 


254         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

practical  he  feels  hopeless  in  the  face  of  the  on-coming  and 
uprising  proletariat.  The  clamorous  well-nigh  desperate 
battle  cry  of  the  Futurists  calling  for  strife,  for  gaiety, 
for  action  was  in  a  way  the  register  of  the  predominance 
of  those  other  qualities  in  Italian  life.  Now,  of  course, 
there  has  been  a  change.  The  call  of  the  Great  War 
roused  young  Italy  to  action  of  an  intensity  that  should 
have  satisfied  the  Futurists.  But  this  has  not  yet  registered 
itself  in  literature,  least  of  all  in  drama.  The  dramatists 
we  have  studied  were  all  trained  in  another  school  of 
thought.  They  have  learned  to  repudiate  idealism,  but 
not  to  accept  pragmatic  hope.  They  look  about  them 
with  eyes  of  observers  scientifically  trained,  to  be  sure, 
but  they  see  misery,  oppression,  sickness,  failure,  and  with 
no  constructive  philosophy  to  support  them,  they  sink 
deeper  and  deeper  into  the  abyss  of  gloom.  Their  very 
amusement  is  cynical,  even  bitter,  based  on  a  knowledge 
of  human  weakness  and  a  scorn  of  the  human  foibles 
without  a  glimpse  of  the  Rabelaisian  or  Goldonian  gaiety 
of  existence. 

Livingston  attributes  to  modern  literature  in  Italy  a 
quality  which  he  calls  Catholic  idealism,  and  in  so  naming 
it,  opens  up  an  interesting  vista.  Among  by  far  the  larger 
number  of  Italians,  he  says,  the  basis  of  thinking  is  the 
doctrines  of  the  church  of  Rome,  though  the  believers 
themselves  are  not  aware  of  the  extent  to  which  they  think 
in  Catholic  terms ;  they  do  not  know  that  there  are  other 
terms.  There  are  certain  things,  certain  large  classes 
of  things,  about  which  the  good  churchman  may  not 
think  at  all.  So  in  his  mental  experiences  he  is  often 
confronted  by  a  cul-de-sac.  He  may  follow  his  reason 
just  so  far,  when  he  comes  to  a  stone  wall  of  dogma  which 


FUTURISM  AND  OTHER  ISMS        255 

he  may  not  surmount,  but  in  front  of  which  he  must  bow 
to  the  superior  wisdom  of  Mother  Church.  "Now  one 
need  offend  no  sensibilities  in  remarking  that  the  Roman 
Church  which  said  everything  about  the  whole  of  Ufe 
more  than  a  thousand  years  ago  has  nothing  particularly 
new  to  say  about  specifically  'modern'  problems.  All 
the  more  since  the  medieval  and  the  modern  points  of 
view  are  slightly  different :  the  one  dealing  with  the  adjust- 
ment of  the  individual  to  environment,  the  other  with  the 
adjustment  of  environments  to  individuals.  It  is 
suflScient  for  our  purposes  to  note  that  Italy  with  her 
Catholic  traditions  is  not  a  hot-bed  of  new  social  ideas ; 
the  situations  treated  often  with  such  artistic  power  have 
usually  an  ethical,  rarely,  if  at  all  a  social  import." 

The  fact  that  the  Italians  have  so  lately  developed  a 
social  consciousness  has  been  pointed  out  in  another 
connection  in  this  study.  They  have  been  the  last  of  the 
illuminated  peoples  to  adopt,  even  in  partial  measure,  the 
great  democratic  ideas  that  are  working  for  the  alleviation 
of  the  masses ;  they  have  stuck  rather  consistently  to  the 
sociology  of  Cain,  asking  innocently  or  ironically  or  brutally 
as  the  case  might  be,  "  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  "  We 
have  come  upon  no  great  play  on  a  social  question ;  there 
is  no  Italian  Ibsen  or  Shaw  or  Brieux  to  present  the  world's 
wrongs,  adumbrating  or  proposing  a  way  of  setting  them 
right.  Feminism,  socialism,  syndicalism,  problems  so 
deeply  concerned  with  the  established  social  order,  have 
not  more  than  troubled  the  surface  of  Italian  dramatic 
thought. 

Livingston  says  further :  "  If  we  analyze  carefully  and 
from  the  Italian  point  of  view  such  plays  as  those  of 
JNiccodemi,  Di  Giacomo,  Braccp,  the  tales  of  Zuccoli,  of 


256         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

Pastonchi,  or  Pirandello  —  of  whom  you  will  —  we  find 
an  extraordinary  community  of  aim  and  a  surprising 
identity  of  result.  Here  usually  we  have  affirmed  a  high 
ethical  ideal,  the  attainment  of  which  constitutes  the 
motive  life  of  the  situation  treated.  But  the  artistic 
effect,  often  tremendous  in  efficacy,  is  that  of  pure  pity, 
the  feeling  of  which  on  the  part  of  author  and  reader  makes 
up  the  sesthetic  process.  Now  pity,  with  all  its  human 
affiliations,  is  one  of  the  tenderest  and  most  beautiful  of 
human  emotions,  but  its  social  relations  are  not  so  clearly 
important  to  a  distinctly  humanitarian  age.  For  passive 
pity  has  for  its  active  object  charity ;  which,  though  it  may 
incidentally  do  some  good  to  the  recipient,  has  by  all 
philosophies  and  religions  been  regarded  as  specially 
beneficent  to  the  giver.  .  .  ."  "Italy  in  its  vast,  its 
tiny,  ancient  world  is  still  meeting  the  problems  of  life 
with  the  pity-charity  reaction." 

The  Italian  is  content  to  contemplate  the  injustices 
of  life,  offering  as  compensation  heaven  and  the  joys  of 
another  world.  Here  he  is  at  conflicting  variance  with  the 
spirit  of  the  modern  age  of  which  the  foremost  conviction 
and  deepest  enthusiasm  are  that  conditions  can  be  reme- 
died by  legislation  and  by  public  opinion,  that  man  is  not 
merely  caught  on  the  wheel  of  things  and  condemned  to 
suffer,  but  by  his  will  can  adapt  his  environment  to  himself. 

The  Italian's  attitude  toward  society  is  eminently  proof 
of  his  detachment  from  essential  problems.  Henri 
Bordeaux  says :  "  The  essential  difference  which  separates 
Italian  dramatists  from  our  new  French  school,  that  of 
Bernstein  and  Brieux,  is  that  in  the  painting  of  passion 
they  never  attack  the  basis  of  society.  Their  individ- 
ualism and  their  sensualism  never  lead  them  to  talk 


FUTURISM  AND   OTHER  ISMS  257 

nonsense."  With  all  their  self-love  amounting  at  times 
to  megalomania  they  still  keep  a  deep-rooted  respect  for 
the  institution,  such  as  is  unknown  in  Protestant  countries. 
In  fact,  the  State  retains  the  authority  and  the  majesty 
of  Rome.  In  his  attitude  toward  the  Church,  the  Italian 
exhibits  a  curious  paradox  pointed  out  by  Bordeaux; 
he  has  so  vivid  a  sense  of  the  grandeur  and  the  dignity  of 
the  Church  that  any  human  being,  be  he  priest,  cardinal 
or  pope,  becomes  a  Httle  ridiculous  when  he  presumes  to 
sustain,  or  especially  to  incarnate  that  grandeur  and 
dignity.  A  play  like  Testoni's  Cardinale  Lambertini 
would  seem  to  an  Anglo-Saxon  to  verge  on  the  blasphe- 
mous. The  good.  Rabelaisian  old  priest  in  Bracco's  The 
Triumph,  the  village  cure  of  Butti's  Flames  in  the  Dark 
with  his  ambitions  for  position  and  worldly  power,  would 
shock  our  sensibilities,  —  so  true  is  it  that  in  Italy  they 
reserve  all  veneration  for  the  institution,  while  in  Protest- 
ant countries  they  are  more  likely  to  respect  the  individual. 
The  treatment  of  the  institution  of  marriage  and  the 
family  in  the  Italian  drama  is  of  peculiar  significance. 
Let  me  quote  Livingston  again.  "The  Italian  feels  deep 
in  his  heart  that  marriage  is  an  immutable,  an  eternal 
sacrifice,  which  most  often  interferes  with  all  sorts  of 
personal  aims.  The  surrender,  through  an  act  of  the  will, 
of  these  personal  desires  to  the  eternal  principle  con- 
stitutes for  him  his  noblest  tragedy  just  as  the  leaping 
over,  the  crawling  under,  the  peeping  around,  the  eternal 
barrier  to  satisfaction  constitutes  for  him  the  most  joyous 
comedy."  Nine  out  of  every  ten  plays  of  recent  years  are 
concerned  with  the  failure  of  marriage.  Marriage  being 
the  sacrifice  of  personal  desires  and  ambitions,  adultery  is 
condoned,  excused,  one  might  almost  say  encouraged.    If 


258         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

one  were  to  believe  the  dramatists,  he  would  scarcely 
expect  to  find  anywhere  a  pure  woman  or  a  man  honest 
in  his  sex  relations.  Fortunately,  however,  the  Italians, 
like  the  French,  are  misrepresented  in  this  respect  by  their 
dramas,  —  the  great  mass  of  the  population  of  both 
countries  being  as  a  matter  of  fact  observant  of  the 
domestic  virtues  and  obligations.  In  Italy  as  in  France, 
the  drama  reader  and  the  theatregoer  contract  a  profound 
weariness  of  the  eternal  inescapable  menages  a  trois,  of 
seduction,  of  rendezvous.  One  would  readily  agree  that  it 
may  be  well  to  avoid  the  good  Anglo-Saxon,  historically 
hypocritical  way  of  covering  over  with  a  blanket  of 
silence  the  things  we  don't  like  to  see ;  but  one  cannot 
commend  the  opposite  practice  of  searching  out  the 
irregularities  for  exclusive  presentation.  Lamb's  theory 
that  the  picture  of  corrupt  manners  presented  by  the 
Restoration  comedy  in  England  was  a  fashion,  a  mere  bit 
of  dramatic  modishness,  not  at  all  a  reproduction  of  the 
life  of  the  times,  may  in  large  measure  be  applied  to 
present-day  drama.  It  has  come  to  be  an  expected  thing 
that  a  play  present  an  unsuccessful  marriage ;  no  other 
love  affair  now  contains  the  necessary  fillip.  So  that  we 
may  well  believe  that,  if  one  may  be  permitted  a  bull,  the 
tiresome  round  of  Eternal  Triangles  is  a  fashion,  a  literary 
convention,  and  not  a  record  of  a  social  condition  in  Italy 
or  any  other  country. 

It  is  Croce  who  uses  the  term  insincerith  of  modern 
literature,  making  his  meaning  clear  thus :  "  This  fabri- 
cation of  the  void,  this  void  which  tries  to  pass  itself  off 
as  full  of  meaning,  this  non-existent  thing  which  presents 
itself  among  real  things,  and  wants  to  substitute  itself 
for  them,  and  dominate  them,  —  this  is  insincerity", — 


FUTUllISM  AND   OTHER  ISMS  259 

not  that  insincerity  which  is  lying  to  other  people  but 
which  is  lying  to  oneself;  by  force  of  lying  to  himself 
(man)  has  aroused  such  confusion  in  his  soul  that  he  can 
no  longer  disentangle  it."  Reasoned  mysticism,  modern- 
ized Catholicism,  mundahe  asceticism  are  some  of  the 
unreconcilable  contradictions  that  the  moderns  attempt 
to  pass  off  as  a  philosophy  and  a  spiritual  programme. 
Croce  is  of  course  aiming  his  shaft  of  critical  scorn  at 
D'Annimzio.  Idealism  he  says  must  be  restored  to  life 
and  to  art  by  recognizing  again  the  value  of  thought. 
This  bourgeois  emptiness,  this  void  of  insincerity  has 
come  out  of  two  things,  —  the  philosophical  repudiation 
of  thinking  and  of  logic  in  the  intellectual  world,  and  in  the 
social  world  the  losing  struggle  of  the  middle  class  against 
the  lower  orders,  its  vain  opposition  to  socialism.  It  has 
resulted  in  the  sestheticism  of  D'Annunzio,  Pascoli, 
Fogazzaro  and  their  followers,  in  the  egoism  which  leads 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Superman  in  politics,  and  in  art  to 
the  appeal  to  pure  emotionalism  at  the  expense  of  the 
intellect,  to  an  emphasis  upon  characteristics  of  passivity, 
inaction,  sestheticism.  They  write  language  that  stirs  the 
blood  and  titillates  the  senses  but  in  cold  analysis  fails  to 
yield  due  meaning  and  value.  The  Italian  drama  is 
too  often  moving  but  not  convincing,  and  the  drama,  to 
fulfill  the  double  function  immemorially  assigned  to  it  — 
a  function  at  once  artistic  and  social  —  should  both  move 
and  convince. 

Critics  and  playgoers  in  Italy  constantly  complain 
that  the  Italian  theatre  is  not  Italian.  If  we  have  been 
obliged  to  study  Italian  drama  in  categories,  and  char- 
acterize it  by  cliches  borrowed  from  the  French,  the  reasons 
are  obvious,  for  French  influence  has  been  potent  and  all- 


260         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY. 

pervasive.  Spanish,  English,  German  have  been  in- 
fluential only  in  a  less  degree.  Henri  Bordeaux  asserts 
that  Italian  plays  are  merely  transformations  of  French 
models,  adding  nothing  dramatic.  And  Tonelli,  Italian 
though  he  be,  laments  bitterly  that  his  countrymen  go 
across  the  mountains  for  their  inspiration.  In  the  theatre 
itself  the  predominance  of  foreign-made  plays  is  astonish- 
ing; at  times  and  in  many  cities  there  is  not  a  native 
drama  running.  French  pieces,  of  course,  are  the  common- 
est, but  German  are  abundant  —  Hauptmann,  Sudermann, 
Bahr,  Reinhardt ;  English  plays  are  frequent  —  Bernard 
Shaw,  Pinero  and  Jones ;  Spanish  plays  are  seen,  — 
Echegaray  and  the  Quintero- Alvarez  brothers;  all  this 
while  many  Italian  authors  have  difficulty  in  gaining  an 
audience.  Quite  recently,  though,  things  seem  to  have 
taken  a  turn,  and  even  the  commercial  managers,  acceding 
to  the  demand  of  a  stimulated  public  opinion,  are  giving 
more  frequent  and  more  careful  productions  of  Italian 
plays. 

From  the  material  point  of  view,  according  to  the 
dramatic  critic  Eduardo  Boutet  and  in  consonance  with 
what  has  been  said  elsewhere  in  these  studies,  the  theatre, 
and  the  drama  itself,  suffer  in  Italy  from  bad  management, 
poor  buildings  and  the  inadequate  training  of  actors  and 
authors;  and  especially,  as  the  same  interests  suffer  in 
all  countries,  from  the  necessity  of  making  a  financial 
success  of  a  production  at  any  sacrifice  of  artistic  excel- 
lence. The  theatres  are  many  of  them  old  and  stuffy. 
Though  there  has  been  a  great  revival  of  playhouse- 
building  in  the  last  few  years  there  has  been  as  yet  no 
great  modern  enterprise  like  the  Leipsic,  Berlin  or  Munich 
theatres.    The  Italian  houses  are  given  to  great  size  and 


FUTURISM   AND    OTHER   ISMS  261 

ornateness  combined  with  insufficient  room  behind  the 
stage  and  poor  Hghting.  A  great  renovation  of  the 
theatres  would  be  an  immense  benefit  to  drama. 

Finally,  Boutet  claims,  the  worst  handicap  from  a 
material  point  of  view  is  the  poor  taste  of  the  actors  and 
those  authors  who  cater  to  them.  The  actor-manager  in 
Italy  has  an  eye  for  business,  and  to  succeed  fully  must 
follow  the  vogue.  Sometimes,  Boutet  says,  things  get 
played  so  poor  that  one  wonders  how  the  capo-comici 
could  ever  have  been  taken  in  by  them;  they  may  be 
successful,  but  still  poor;  the  stars  need  their  taste 
trained  to  pick  good  plays.  But  the  authors,  too,  need 
training  sometimes.  Too  often  plays  appear  that  display 
all  the  lamentable  characteristics  of  hasty  and  careless 
creation ;  the  author,  making  a  mere  trade  of  supplying 
plays,  rushes  in  to  follow  the  vogue  set  up  by  some  success- 
ful piece,  and  ignorant  of  dramatic  technic,  with  no  back- 
ground of  learning  or  cultivated  experience,  with  no 
knowledge  of  acting  and  having  had  no  apprenticeship 
in  writing,  he  produces  things  that  offer  a  fat  part  for  the 
star  and  for  the  rest  are  made  up  of  "  dumb  show  and  noise 
equally  inexplicable."  By  such  process  is  any  new  idea 
in  drama  exploited,  corrupted,  detached  from  the  stream 
of  art  and  encysted  as  a  mere  commercialized  genre. 

Perhaps  if  the  life  of  the  world  had  gone  on  in  its  orderly, 
or  rather  its  familiar  fashion,  a  student  who  had  followed 
as  we  have  now  done  the  history  of  a  literary  type  for  fifty 
years  of  its  progress,  or  who  had  only  read  the  scores  of 
specimens  we  have  been  concerned  with,  might,  even 
though  he  claimed  no  vatic  powers,  have  ventured  upon  a 
prediction.  But  the  social,  financial,  intellectual,  emo- 
tional, scientific  upheaval  of  the  war  makes  prophecy  un- 


262  THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

wise  in  all  but  its  simplest  aspects.  The  future  of  the 
drama  in  Italy  is  upon  the  knees  of  the  gods.  Is  it  likely 
that  in  Italy  and  in  the  rest  of  the  world  this  era  of  action, 
of  colossal  achievements,  of  sensation,  of  adventure  will 
create  a  new  epic  period,  —  that  the  art  of  literature  will 
be  prevailingly  employed  in  the  recounting  of  deeds  and 
the  celebrating  of  heroes  ?  Will  the  confederated  storm  of 
sorrow  that  has  assailed  the  world,  the  grief  and  rage  and 
fear  that  have  swept  men's  bosoms,  the  wild  uplift  of 
joy  and  hope  and  victory  record  itself  in  dirge  and  hymn 
and  psean,  —  a  new  universal  outburst  of  lyricism  ? 
Will  the  coming  reconstruction  of  society,  the  readjust- 
ments and  cooperations  of  the  new  social  order  find  their 
natural  channels  in  a  deeper,  nobler  drama  than  any  the 
world  has  yet  seen?  To  whatever  form  the  literary  art 
of  the  world  may  prevailingly  take,  we  may  believe  that 
Italy,  now  a  citizen  of  the  new  world  of  nations,  will  make 
her  characteristic  and  beautiful  contribution. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX 

This  list  of  plays  is  intended  rather  for  ready  reference 
than  to  be  a  complete  bibliography;  it  contains  only  the 
most  important  plays  presented  during  the  modern  period. 
Reference  is  made  to  bibliographies  and  works  containing 
supplementary  matter. 

The  dates  on  the  left  are  those  of  the  first  performance. 
On  the  right  are  the  date  and  place  of  first  pubhcation  in 
book  form,  unless  when  otherwise  indicated. 
Altavilla,  Pietro. 

No  cammarino,  de  na  primma  donna  tragica,  co 
Pascariello  Carola  ridicolo  declamatore  etc. 
Naples,  1867. 
Teatro  Comico  Napolitano.     1849  fiF. 
Ambra,  Lncio  d'. 

Steeple  Chase. 
II  plenipotenzario. 

Piccole  scene  della  grande  commedia. 
La  via  di  Damasco. 
Effetti  di  luce. 

II  Bernini  (With  G.  lipparini).     1904. 
GoflFredo  Mamelli  (With  G.  Lipparini).    1904. 
La  frontiera.     Nuova  Antologia,  1915. 
Annunzio,  Gabriele  d*. 

La  parabola  delle  vergini  fatue  e  delle  vergini 

prudenti.     1897. 
La  parabola  del'uomo  ricco  e  del  povero  Lazaro. 

1898. 
La  parabola  del  figliuol  prodigo.     1898. 


264         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

I  Sogni  delle  Stagioni : 

Sogno    d'un    mattino    di    primavera.     1897. 

Translation  in  Poet  Lore,  1902. 
Sogno     d'un     tramonto     d'autunno.     1898. 
Translation  in  Poet  Lore,  1904. 

La  citta  morta.  1898.  Translated  as  The 
Dead  City  by  Arthur  Symons.  London,  1900 ; 
New  York,  1902. 

La  Gioconda.  1898.  Translated  as  Gioconda 
by  Arthur  Symons.    New  York,  1902. 

La  gloria.     1899. 

Francesca  da  Rimini.  1902.  Translated  by 
Arthur  Symons.    New  York,  1902. 

La  figlia  di  Jorio.  1904.  Translated  as  The 
Daughter  of  Jorio  by  C.  Porter,  P.  Isola  and 
A.  Henry.     Boston,  1907  and  1911. 

La  fiaccola  sotto  il  moggio.     1905. 

Pill  che  I'amore.     1907. 

La  nave.     1908. 

Fedra.     1909. 

Le  martyre  de  Saint  Sebastien.  1911.  Trans- 
lated into  Italian  in  1911. 

La  Pisanella.  1913.  Translated  into  Italian, 
1914. 

Parisina,  Tragedia  lirica.     1913. 

La  Chevrefeuille.  1913.  Adapted  in  Italian  as 
II  ferro  in  1913.  Translated  into  English  by 
C.  Sartoris  and  G.  Enthoven  as  The  Honey- 
stickle.     1915. 

Cabiria.     1914. 

Amaranta.     1914. 

La  Piave.     1918. 
Antona-Traversi,  Camillo. 

La  festa  del  villaggio.     1877. 

II  matrimonio  di  Alberto.     1886. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  265 

II  sacrijBzio  di  Giorgio.     1887. 
Punto  e  da  capo.     1888. 
Uno  scandalo.     1887. 
La  figlia  di  Nora.     1889. 
Finte  e  parate.     1889. 
Una  modella.     1890. 
1890.    Tordi  o  fringuelli.     1894. 

1892.  La  balia. 

1893.  Le  Rozeno.     1893. 

1893.  Danza  macabre.     1894. 

1894.  Ifanciulli.     1894. 

1895.  Terra  o  fuoco.     1896. 
Frine:  Operetta.     1897. 

1899.    Parissiti.     1899,  and  Palermo,  1913. 

L'Acquitte.     1904.     Translated  into   Italian  as 

L'Assolto.     1908. 
Babbo  Gournas.     1906. 
In  bordata.     1908. 
Calvario.     1908. 
La  nuova  famiglia.     1908. 
La  torre  di  pietra.     1913. 
1914.    Ilbavaglio.    1915. 
La  Fran^aise.     1916. 
La  fianc^.    1916. 
DonMatteo.     1917. 
Stabat  Mater.     1917. 

Camillo  Antona-Traversi  has  also  been  active 
in  collaborating  and  in  this  field  has  produced : 
With  Jean  Sart^ne  (in  French). 

La    piovra.     Translated    into    Italian    by 

A.  SalsiUi.     1911. 
Dopo    44    Anni.     1915.    Translated    into 
Italian.     1916. 
With  P.  di  Martiny. 
Madre.    1912. 


266         THE   CONTEMPORARY   DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

Donnine  allegre.     1913. 
With  A.  Ribaux. 

In  pace.     1912. 
With  E.  H.  Vivier. 

L'Ecole  des  neveux.     1913. 
With  Ch.  Raymond. 

La  preghiera  della  bimba.     1913. 
With  C.  Margelle. 

Petite  Reine.     1913. 
With  R.  M.  Perazzi. 
Gli    ultimi    giorni    di    GoflPredo    Mamelli. 
1917. 
Antona-Traversi,  Giannino. 

1890.    La  mattina  dopo.     1910. 

1892.  Per  vanita.     1910. 

1893.  Dura  Lex.     1910. 

1893.  La  civetta.     1904. 

1894.  La  prima  volta.     1910. 

1896.  II  braccialetto.     1897  and  1910. 

1897.  II  razzo.     1898. 

1898.  La  scuola  del  marito.     1899. 

1899.  La  scalata  all'Olimpo. 

1900.  L'amica.     1902. 

1902.  L'unica  scusa. 

1903.  I  giorni  piil  lieti.     1904. 

1904.  La  fedelta  dei  mariti. 

1905.  Viaggio  di  nozze.     1917. 
1907.  Carit^  mondana.     1907. 

1907.  Una  moglie  oncsta.     1907. 

1908.  I  martiri  del  lavoro.     1909. 
La  madre.     1911. 

La  Du  Barry.     1912,  with  E.  Golisciani. 
II  paravento.     1914. 
La  grande  ombra.     1915. 
II  sopravissuto.    1916. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  267 

These  one-act  plays  written  early  but  not 
published  until  1917. 

Anima  semplice ;  Hony  soit  qui  mal  y  pense ; 
Pesee  d'aprile ;  L'ultima  spese ;  La  pelliccia  di 
martora. 


Baffico, 

Giuseppe. 

1897. 

Prodigio. 

1898. 

I  disertori.     1904. 

1898. 

Ala  ferita. 

1899. 

11  germe. 

1900. 

Le  colpe  degli  altri. 

1902. 

Sulla  soglia. 

1911. 

Amor  nemico. 

1912. 

L'idolo. 

Benelu, 

Sem. 

1904. 

La  tignola.     1911. 

1905. 

La  maschera  di  Bruto.     1908. 

1909. 

La  cena  delle  beflFe.     1909. 

1910. 

L'amore  dei  tre  re.     1910. 

1911. 

11  mantellaccio.     1911. 

1912. 

Rosmunda.     1912. 

1913. 

La  Gorgona.     1913. 

1915. 

Le  nozze  dei  centauri.     1915. 

Bersezio, 

VlTTORIO. 

1852. 

Pietro  Micca. 

1853. 

Romolo. 

Nobilt^. 

H  perdono.    1877. 

1861. 

La  violenza  I'a  sempre  torto. 

1863. 

Le  miserie  del  signor  Travetti.     1876. 

1864. 

Una  boUa  di  sapone.     1876. 

1869. 

Le  prosperity  del  signor  Travetti.     1876. 

La  fratellanza  artigiana.     1876. 

I  violenti.     1876. 

Da  galeotto  a  marinaio.     1876. 

268         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 


1869. 

Un  pugno  incognito.     1876. 

Fra  due  contendenti.     1876. 

Uno  zio  milionario.     1876. 

I  mettimale.     1876. 

Casa  minuta. 

Diavolina. 

Le  donne  forte. 

11  marito  positivo. 

11   signor   ministro    (With    A. 

Claretie).     1883. 

Bertolazzi,  Carlo. 

Al  monte  di  piet^. 

1887. 

In  verger.     1887. 

1891. 

La  religione  d' Amelia.     1891. 

El    nost'Milan,    including    La 

1894 ;  I  sciori.     1895. 

1895. 

Strozzin.     1905. 

1895. 

La  ruina. 

1900. 

L'Amigo  di  tutti. 

1903. 

La  casa  del  sonno. 

1903. 

L'Egoista.     1903. 

1904. 

Lulu.     1904. 

1905. 

11  matrimonio  della  Lena. 

1906. 

Lorenzo  e  il  suo  avvocato. 

1908. 

I  giorni  di  festa. 

1909. 

Ombre  del  cuore. 

1916. 

I  fratelli  Bandiera. 

BoiTo,  Arrigo. 

1900. 

Nerone.     1901. 

BONASPETTI,   GiNO. 

Un  malifico,  tragedia  lirica.     18! 

11  redivivo.     1912. 

I  figli  di  Caino.     1912. 

BoRG,  Washington. 

Semina. 

Dumas    and  J. 


Povera    gent'. 


BIBLIOGRA.PHICAL  APPENDIX  269 

Tramonto. 

Rose  rosse. 

Sensitive.     1905. 

II  catechismo  di  Susette. 

II  passato  che  torna. 

Tre  giardini. 

Nuda. 

Volo  di  rondine. 

La  presidentessa.     Dramatized  from  the  novel  of 
Roberto  Bracco.     1914. 
Bovio,  Giovanni. 

1877.    Cristo  alia  festa  di  Purim.     1887. 

San  Paolo.     1895. 

II  millenio.     1904. 

Leviatano.     1904. 

Socrate. 
Bracco,  Roberto. 

Teatro  completo  di  Roberto  Bracco  Palermo  1909  S. 

1886.  Non  fare  ad  altri. 

1887.  Lui,  lei,  lui. 

1887.  Un'avventura  di  viaggio. 

1888.  Le  disilluse. 

1893.    Dopo  il  veglione  e  viceversa. 

1893.  Una  donna.     1894. 

1894.  Infedele.    Translated  and  played  as  The  Courir- 

tess  Coqiiet.    New  York,  1907. 

1894.  Maschere. 

1895.  II  trionfo. 

1895.  Don  Pietro  Caruso.    Translated  and  played  in 

English.     1912. 

1896.  La  fine  deiramore.     Adapted  from  the  Italian 

and  played  as  /  Love  You.    London,  1913. 

1898.  Fiori  d'arancio.    Played  in  English  as  Orange 

Blossoms.    New  York,  1914. 

1899.  Tragedie  deiranima. 


270         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

1900.    II  diritto  di  vivere. 

1900.  Uno   degli   onesti.    Played   as    The   Honorable 

Lover.    New  York,  1915. 

1901.  Sperduti  nel  buio. 

1903.  Maternita. 

1904.  II  frutto  acerbo. 

1904.  Fotografia  senza  .  .  . 

1905.  La  piccola  fonte.    Translated  as    The  Hidden 

Spring.     Poet  Lore,  1907. 

1905.  Notte  di  neve.     Played  as  Night  of  Snow.    New 

York,  1915. 

1906.  I    fantasmi.    Translated    as    Phantasms.    Poet 

Lore,  1908. 

1908.  Nellina. 

1909.  II  piccolo  Santo.     1910. 

1910.  II  perfetto  Amore.     1913. 

1912.  Nemmeno  un  bacio.     1913. 

1913.  L  amante  lontano.     1916. 
Ad  armi  corte. 

La  chiacchierina. 

1915.  L'internazionale.     1918. 

1916.  L'amante  lontano.     1918. 
1916.    L'uocchie  cunzacrate.     1918. 
1918.     LaCuUa.     1918. 

BuTTi,  Enrico  Annibale. 

1893.  II  frutto  amaro. 

1894.  L'Utopia.     1894. 

1894.  II  vortice. 

1895.  La  Furia  domata,  Commedia  musicale.    1895 
1898.    La  fine  d'un  ideale.     1900. 

1900.    La  corsa  al  piacere.     1901. 

1900.  Lucifero.     1901. 

1901.  Una  tempesta.     1903. 

1903.  II  gigante  e  i  pigmei.     1903. 

1904.  Fiamme  nell'ombra.    1907. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  271 

Tutto  per  nulla.     1906. 
II  cuculo.     1907. 
II  castello  del  sogno.     1910. 
Nel  paese  della  fortuna. 
Le  rivali.     1911. 
1911.     Sempre  cos!.     1911. 

Intermezzo  poetico.     1913. 
1913.    Le    seduzioni.     (Written    with  A.    Gugliemo.) 

1916. 
H  sole  invisibile.     1913. 
Capuana,  Luigi. 

II  piccolo  archivio.     1886. 
1888.    Giacinta.     1890. 
Malia. 

Spera  di  sole.    1898. 
Gastigo. 

Delitto  ideale.     1903. 
II  mulo  di  rosa.     1905. 
Un  vampiro.     1907. 
Quacquara. 

A  volume   of   "Teatro  dialettale  siciliano*', 

1911,    includes    MaUa;  Lu    cavaleri    Pidigna; 

Ppi   he   currivu ;    Bona  gentie ;    Cumparaticu ; 

'Ntirrugatoriu ;  Riricchia. 

Castelnuovo,   Leo  di.     (Pen  name  of  Count  Leopoldo 

Pull6.) 

1857.  II  magnetizzature. 

1858.  Giuseppe  Balsemo. 

1867.  II  guanto  della  regina. 

1868.  Un  cuor  morto. 
1876.  Fuochi  di  paglia. 
1892.  O  here  o  aflFogare. 
1899.  El  maestro. 

La  cugina. 

II  Conte  Ugolino. 


272  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

1793. 

Pesce  d'aprile. 

Conte  verde.    These  last  five  plays  reprinted. 
Milan,  1907. 
Castelvecchio,  R.     (Pen  name  of  Count  Giulio  Pull^.) 
Iginia  d'Asti. 
Frine. 
Romilda. 

Sangue  per  sangue. 
Maria  Faliero. 

I  due  zuavi. 
La  nostalgia. 
Ugo  Foscolo. 

La  donna  pallida. 

La  cameriera  astuta. 

La  donna  romantica  ed  il  medico  omeopatico. 

Commedia  in  famiglia. 

La  cameriera  prudente. 

Famiglia  ai  nostri  giomi. 

II  favorito  della  regina. 
Cavallotti,  Felice. 

I  Pezzenti.     1877. 
Guido.     1873. 
Agnese.     1891. 
1874.     Alcibiade. 

I  Messeni.     1877. 

II  Cantico  dei  Cantici.     1882. 
La  sposa  di  Menecle.     1882. 

Nicarete,  ovvero  la  festa  degli  Aloi.     1886. 

Le  rose  bianche. 

La  lettera  d'amore. 

Agatodemon.     1895. 

Luna  di  miele.     1883. 

Cura  radicale.     1883. 

La  figlia  di  Jefte.     1887. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  273 

Sic  vos  non  vobis.     1884. 

Lea. 

Povero  Piero.     1884. 

COGNETTI,   GOFFREDO. 

Prime  arme.     1877. 

Mala  vita.     1889.     (With  S.  di  Giacomo.) 

Basso  porto. 


A  Santa  Lucia.     1895. 

Alta  camorra.     1898. 

CORRADIN] 

[,  Enrico. 

Dopo  la  morte.     1896. 

Giacomo  Vettori.     1901. 

Giulio  Cesare.     1902. 

Le  sette  lampade  d'oro.     1904. 

L'apologo  delle  due  sorelle.     1904. 

Maria  Salvestri.     1907. 

Cariotta  Corday.     1908. 

Le  vie  del  oceano.     1913. 

COSSA,  PlETRO. 

Mario  e  i  Cimbri.     1865. 

Sordello.     1876. 

Monaldeschi.     1874. 

1867. 

Beethoven.     1872. 

1868. 

Puschkin.     1876. 

1871. 

Nerone.     1872.    Produced  as  Nero  in  New  York, 

1908. 

1871. 

Plauto  ed  il  suo  secolo. ,   1876. 

1875. 

Lodovico  Ariosto  e  gli  Estensi.     1878. 

1875. 

Messalina.     1877. 

Cleopatra.     1879. 

1876. 

Giuliano  I'Apostato.     1894. 

1877. 

Cola  di  Rienzo.     1894. 

1878. 

I  Borgia.     1881. 

1879. 

Cecilia.     1885. 

1880. 

I  Napoletani  del  1799.    1891. 

274         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

Deledda,  Grazia. 

Odio  vince.     1904. 

Amori  modemi.     1908. 

L'Edera.    1912.     (With  C.  Antona-Traversi.) 
Farina,  Salvatore. 

1899.    Tutto  per  il  mondo. 

Amore  cieco.     1907. 

Dal  dire  al  fare.     1907. 

Coscienza  elastica.     1907. 
Ferrari,  Paolo. 

Baltromeo  calzolaro.  1847.  (Became  later  in 
Italian  II  codicillo  dello  zio  Venanzio,  1865.) 

Scetticismo.  1850.  (Became  later  the  comedy 
in  verse  La  donna  e  lo  scettico,  1864.) 

La  bottega  del  capellaio. 

Goldoni  e  le  sue  sedici  commedie  nuove.     1852. 

Una  poltrona  storica.     1853. 

Dante  a  Verona.     1853. 

La  scuola  degli  innamorati.     1854. 

Dolcezza  e  rigore.     1854. 

La  satira  e  Parini.     1854-1856. 

Prosa.     1858. 

La  medesina  d'onna  ragazza  amaleda.  1858.  A 
comedy  in  Modenese  dialect  reworked  the  next 
year  in  Italian. 

Amore  senza  stima.     1868. 

II  Duello.     1868. 

Cause  ed  effetti.     1871. 

11  ridicolo.     1872. 

II  suicido.     1875. 

Due  dame.     1877. 

Alberto  Pregalli.     1880. 

Vecchie  stone.     1865. 

Nessuno  va  al  campo.     1866. 

Amici  e  rivali.     1874. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  276 

Un  giovine  ufficiale.     1880. 

II  Signor  Lorenzo.     1886. 

La  separazione.     1886. 

Fulvio  Testi.    1888. 
Feeravilla,  Eduardo. 

El  Duell  del  sur  Panera. 

La  class  di  asen. 

On  spos  per  rid. 

Scena  a  soggetto  musicale. 

Mines  tron. 
FoGAzzARO,  Antonio. 

El  garofano  rosso.     1903. 

II  ritratto  mascherato.     1903. 

Nadejde.     1903. 
FoscoLO,  Ugo. 

1796.    Tieste.    1797. 
1811.    Aiace.    1828. 
1813.    Ricciarda.     1820. 
Gallina,  Giacinto. 

II  primo  passo.     1877. 

Cosi  va  il  mondo,  bimba  mia.     1882. 

Tutto    in    campagna.     1883.     Translated    into 
Italian.     1884. 

I  Oci  del  cuor.    1883.    Translated  into  Italian. 
1885. 
1877.    Teleie  vecchi. 

Dopo  la  commedia.     1883. 

Amor  di  Paruca.     1883. 
1875.    El  moroso  de  la  nona. 

Gnente  dc  novo.     1883. 
1892.    La  famigl!a  del  Santolo. 

La  mamma  non  muore.     1885. 
1872.    Baruffe  in  famiglia.     1886. 
1894.    La  base  di  tuto.     1886. 

Esmeralda.    1890. 


276         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

1891.    Serenissima.     1896. 
Gherardi  del  Testa,  Tommaso. 

Una  foUe  ambizione. 

Vanita  e  capriccio. 

Un  marito  sospetoso. 

Con  gli  uomini  non  si  scherza. 

II  sistema  di  Giorgio. 

II  regno  di  Adelaide. 

II  sistema  di  Lucrezia. 

La  moda  e  la  famiglia. 

II  vero  blasone. 

Le  coscienze  elastiche. 

La  vita  nuova. 

La  carita  golosa. 
GiACOMETTi,  Paolo. 

II  poeta  e  la  ballerina. 

Torquato  Tasso. 

Bianca  Maria  Visconti. 

Camilla  Foa  da  Casala. 

Lucrezia  Maria  Davidson. 

Elisabetta,  Regina  dTnghilterra.  Translated 
as  Elizabeth,  Queen  of  England  by  T.  Wilkins. 
New  York,  1866. 

Flglia  e  madre. 

La  donna. 

La  colpa  vendica  la  colpa. 

La  morte  civile. 

Gorilla  Olimpica. 

L'ultimo  dei  duchi  di  Mantova. 

Cristofero  Colombo.     (Trilogia.) 

Luisa  Strozzi. 

Fieschi  e  fregosi. 

Cola  di  Rienzi. 

II  Domenichino. 

Per  mia  madre  cieca. 


.  BIBLIOGRAPHICAL   APPENDIX  277 

La  donna  in  seconde  nozze. 
Quattro  donne  in  una  casa. 
Giuditta.    Translated  as  Judith  by  J.  A.  Gray. 

New  York,  1866. 
Luigia  Sanfelice. 

Maria  Antonietta,  Regina  di  Francia.    Trans- 
lated as  Marie  Antoinette,  Queen  of  France  by 
J.  C.  Pray,  New  York,  1867,  and  H.  Forest, 
London. 
Michelangiolo  Buonarotti. 
Carlo  II,  Re  d'Inghilterra. 
La  moglie  del'esule. 
Pellegro  Piola. 
Sofocle. 
Di  GiACOMO,  Salvatore. 
'O  voto.     1909. 
A  San  Francesco.     1909. 
*0  mese  Mariano.     1909. 
Assunta  Spina.     1909. 
Quand  Tamour  meurt.     1909. 
GiACOSA,  Giuseppe. 

1871.    Una   partita  a  scacchi.     1871.    Translated  as 
The  Wager  by  B.  H.  Clark.    New  York,  1913. 
1871.     Storia  vecchia. 
1871.    Non  dir  quattro  se  non  Thai  nel  sacco.     1891. 

1871.  Al  can'  che  lecca  cenere  non  dar  farina. 

1872.  II  trionfo  d'Amore.     1875. 
1877.     Al  pianoforte. 

1877.  II  marito  amante  della  moglie.     1877. 

1878.  II  fratello  d'armi.     1878. 
1880.  II  Conte  rosso.     1880. 
1880.  Luisa.     1881. 

Sorprese  notturne.     1881. 
1882.    II  filo:    scena  filosofico-morale  per  marionette. 
1883. 


278         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

1885.    Resa  a  discrezione.     1888. 

La  zampa  del  gatto.    1888. 

La  tardi  ravveduta.    1888. 
1883.    La  sirena.     1888. 

Intermezzi  e  scene.     1888. 
1876.    Acquazzoni  in  montagna.     1891. 
1885.    L'Onorabile  Ercole  Mallardi. 

1889.  Tristi   amori.    1890.    Translated   as    Unhappy 

Love  by  E.  A.  Trombly.     Poet  Lore,  1917. 

1890.  La  Dame  de  Challant.    Translated  by  Giacosa 

into  Italian  as  "La  Signora  di  Challant." 
1894.    Diritti  dell'anima.     1895.    Translated  as  Sacred 
Ground  by  Edith  and  Allen  Updegraff.    New 
York,  1915. 
1900.    Come  le  foglie.     1900.    Translated  as  As  the 
Leaves.     The  Drama,  1911;  and  as  Like  Fall- 
ing Leaves  by  E.  and  A.  Updegraff.    New  York, 
1915. 
1905.    II  pill  forte.     1905.    Translated  as  The  Stronger, 
The  Drama,  1913 ;  and  as  The  Stronger  by  E. 
and  A.  Updegraff.    New  York,  1915. 
La  felicity.    Unfinished. 
Giacosa  prepared  with  Luigi  lUica  the  following 
librettos  for  G.  Puccini. 
La  Boh^me.     1896. 
La  Tosca.    1899. 
Madame  Butterfly.     1903. 

GUBERNATIS,   AngELO  DE. 

Romolo.     1899. 

La  morte  di  Catone.    1899. 

Romolo  Augustolo.    1899. 

Buddha.     1902. 

n  Re  Nala.    1907. 

II  Re  Dararata.     1907. 

M&za  o  I'illusione.     1907. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  279 

Savitri.    1907. 

Prob,  principe  della  pace.    1912. 
LoPEz^  Sabatino. 

1889.  Oriana. 

1890.  Di  notte. 

1890.  L'intmsa. 

1891.  II  ritorno. 

Una  posta  suprema. 

1892.  IfratelH. 
Romeo. 

II  successo. 
1894.    II  segreto. 
Berta. 
L'ospite. 

1897.  Ninetta. 

1898.  L'autore  assista  alia  rapprasentazione. 
Daccapo. 

II  punto  d'appoggio.    Translated  into  French. 
Revue  Bleue.     1905. 

La  guerra. 
1907.    La  donna  d'altnii. 

Bufere.    1908. 

La  buona  figliola.    1908. 
1910.    II  brutto  e  le  belle.     1913. 

1912.  La  nostra  pelle.     1913. 

1913.  L'ouragan.     (In  French.)     Reme  Bleue.     1913. 
1913.    II  terzo  marito.     1913.    Played  in  New  York  as 

Three  for  Diana.     1919. 
H  viluppo.     1915. 
Mario  e  Maria.     1916. 
Manzoni,  Alessandrg. 

1828.    II  Conte  di  Carmagnola.     181&-1820. 
1843.    Adelchi.     1820-1822. 
Mabenco,  Carlo. 

Pia  dei  Tolommei. 


280         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

Marenco,  Leopoldo. 

1871.     II  falconiere  di  Pietro  Ardena.     1883. 
Piccarda  Donati.     1883. 
Rafaello  Sanzio.     1883. 
Saffo.     1883. 
Corrado.     1883. 
La  famiglia.     1883. 

1860.  Marcellina.     1883. 
L'eredita  dello  zio.     1883. 

1861.  Giorgio  Gandi.     1883. 
1866.    Celeste.     1883. 

Makinetti,  F.  T. 

1909.    II  Re  Baldoria.     1910. 
La  Momie  sanglante. 

Many  short  plays,  three  of  which  have  been 
translated  by  M.  Cram.     Vanity  Fair,  April  and 
May,  1919.     They  are:    Anti-neutrality,  Simvl' 
taneity,  and  Moonlight. 
Mabtini,  Vincenzo. 

Gli  educatori. 

II  marito  in  vesta  da  camera. 
1843.    II  marito  e  I'amante. 

II  cavaliere  d'industria. 
Una  donna  di  quarant'anni. 

1853.  II  misantropo  in  society.  ^^ 

I  rispetti  umani. 

La  diplomazia  d'una  madre. 
Dopo  27  anni. 

1854.  L'amante  muto. 

La  strategica  d'un  marito. 
La  morale  d'un  uom  d'onore. 

MONICELLI,   TOMASSO. 

II  viandante.     1910. 

La  terra  promessa.     1911. 
Signori,  signore  e  signorini.     1913. 


BIBLIOGRA.PHICAL  APPENDIX  281 

Intorno  al  lume. 
L'esodo.     1914. 
MoscHiNO,  Ettore. 

La  Reginetta  di  Saba.     1910. 
1910.    Tristano  e  Isolda. 

Conca  d'oro.     1911. 
Cesare  Borgia.     1913. 
L'Ombre  di  Don  Giovanni.     1914. 
NiccoDEMi,  Dario. 

1909.  Ilrifugio.  1912.  First  played  in  French  as  "Le 
Refuge,"  1909,  and  in  New  York  as  The 
Prodigal  Husband,  1914. 

1912.  L'aigrette.     1912. 

1913.  I  pescecani.     1913. 

1915.  L'ombra.     1915.     Played  in  New  York  as  The 

Shadow,  1915. 

1916.  La  nemica.     1917. 

1916.  Scampolo.    Played  in  London  as  Remnant,  1917 ; 

New  York,  1919. 

1917.  La  Maestrina. 
1917.    IlTitano. 

NiccouNi,  Giovanni  Battista. 
Polissena. 
Ino  e  Temisto. 
Edipo. 
Medea. 

1815.  Matilde. 

1816.  Nabucco.     1819. 

1817.  Giovanni  da  Procida.    Produced  in  1830. 
1823.    Antonio  Foscarini.    Produced  in  1827. 
1834.    Ludovico  Sforza. 

1838.    Rosmunda  d'Inghil terra. 

Amaldo  da  Brescia.     1848. 

Filippo  Strozzi.     1847. 

Mario  e  i  Cimbri.    1858.    Unfinished. 


282         THE  CONTEMPORA'RT  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 


NOVELLI, 

AUGUSTO. 

1891. 

L'Amore  sui  tetti.     1911.  ^ 

1896. 

Un  campagnuolo  ai  bagni. 

1897. 

I  Mantegna. 

Dopo.     1900. 

11  peccato.     1900. 

1901. 

La  chiocciola. 

1901. 

I  morti. 

1905. 

La  signorina  della  quarta  pagina.    Reprinted  in 

Roba  allegra  e  viceversa.    Florence,  1910. 

1905. 

Gli  ozi  di  Capua.    Reprinted  in  op.  cit.,  1910. 

1906. 

Vecchi  eroi.     1906. 

1906. 

Le  vergini  del  Lippi. 

1908. 

L'Acqua  cheta.    Reprinted  in  op.  cit,  1910. 

1908. 

Purgatorio,  Inferno  e  Paradiso.    Reprinted  in 

op.  cit,  1910. 

1908. 

Acqua  passata.     Printed  in  op.  cit,  1910. 

11  morticino.    Printed  in  op.  cit,  1910. 

Deputato  per  forza.     1910. 

Casa  mia,  casa  mia.     1910. 

Acqua  potabile.     1910. 

Per  il  codice.     1910. 

Invitato  a  pranzo.     1910. 

L'ascenzione.     1910. 

Linea  Viareggio-Pisa-Roma.     1910. 

Chi  e  causa  del  suo  male. 

Gallina  vecchia. 

1913. 

La  cupola.     1913. 

1914. 

Canapone. 

1915. 

Oscar,  non  far  confondere  rivista. 

1916. 

La  Kultureide. 

1916. 

Polio  freddo. 

1916. 

11  lupo  perde  il  vizio. 

Ojetti,  Ugo. 

L'inutilit^  del  male. 

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  283 

Tutto  per  I'amore. 

Gustavo  Modena. 

La  figlia  di  Gianni. 

L'Invincibile.     1904. 

II  matrimonio  di  Casanova.    1910. 
Peluco,  Silvio. 

1815.    Francesca  da  Rimini.     1859. 
1820.    Eufemia  da  Messina.     1859. 

1820.  Ester  d'Engaddi.    1859. 

1821.  Iginia  d'Asti.     1859. 
Leoniero  da  Dertona.     1859. 
Gismonda  da  Mendrisio.    1859. 

1830.    Erodiade.     1859. 

1833.  Tommaso  Moro.     1859. 

1834.  Corradino. 
Petito,  Antonio. 

Ciccuzza.     1899. 

Tre  surice  d'int'a  no  mastuello,  con  Pulcinella: 
n'fra  la  surice  lo  cchiu  ncorreggibele,  tormen- 
tato  da  duje  nnamurate  e  da  no  surdo.    1907. 

PlETRACQUA,   LuiGI. 

La  famigia  del  solda.     1871. 
Gigin  a  bala  nen.     1871. 
Le  sponde  del  Po.    1871. 
Le  sponde  del  Dora.     1871. 
Sablin  a  bala.    1871. 
Rispeta  tua  foumna.  1871. 
Pover  Parocco.    1871. 
La  miseria. 

La  Cabana  del  Re  Galontom. 
Le  figlie  povere. 
La  questione  del  pane. 
Marioumna  Clarin. 

PiNDEMONTE,   GlOVANNI. 

1797.    Orso  Spato. 


284         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 
Baccanali. 

PiNDEMONTE,   IPPOUTO. 

1778.    Ulisse. 

Eteocle  e  Polinice. 

Geta  e  Caracalla. 
1797.    Arminio.     1804. 
Pirandello,  Lmoi. 

II  turno. 

La  morsa. 

Scamandra. 

li  dovere  del  medico. 

Lmnie  di  Sieilia.     1911.    American  ed.,  Goggio. 
1916. 
1914.     H  piacere  dell'onesta. 

All'uscita.     1916. 
1914.    Se    non    cosi.      Nturoa    Antologia.     1916.    Re- 
printed, 1917. 

Pensaci,  Giacomino  I     1916. 
1917.    Liola.     1917. 

Cosi  ^  (se  vi  pare).     1918. ; 
Praqa,  Marco. 

Le  due  case. 

1888.  L'amico.     1893. 
Giuliana.     1888. 
L'incanto.     1888. 
Mater  Dolorosa.     1888. 

1889.  Levergini.     1890. 

1890.  La  moglie  ideale. 

1892.  L'Innamorata.     1893. 
AUeluja.     1893. 

1893.  L'erede.     1894. 
La  nonna.     1895. 
Bell'Apollo.     1897. 
II  dubbio. 

La  morale  della  favola.    1904. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  285 

L'Ondina.     1904. 
La  crisi.     1905. 
La  porta  chiiisa.    1913. 
Rasi,  Luigi. 

Armanda  ritoma.    1889. 

Clara.     1889. 

Claudia. 

La  felicitii,. 

Principessa  Dora.     1901. 

La  commedia  della  pesta. 

ROSSELIJ,   Am  ALIA. 

1900.    Anima.     1901. 

Felicita  perduta.     1901. 
1904.    L'illusione.     1906. 

L'ideafissa.     1906. 

L'amica.     1906. 

El  refolo.     1910. 

El  socio  del  papa.    1912. 
1914.    San  Marco. 

ROVETTA,   GeROLAMO. 

Un  volo  dal  nido.     1877. 

La  moglie  di  Don  Giovanni.    1877. 

In  sogno.     1878. 

Collera  cieca.     1878. 

Gli  uomini  pratici.     1879. 

Scellerata.     1882. 

La  Contessa  Maria.  1884. 
1887.  Alia  cita  di  Roma.  1891. 
1889.    La  trilogia  di  Dorina.     1891. 

Marco  Spada.     1892. 
1892.     I  disonesti.     1893. 

La  cameriera  nova.     1893. 

La  baraonda.     1894. 

La  reaia.     1895. 

Madame  Fanny.    1895. 


286         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

1896.    Principio  di  secolo.     1897. 

II  ramo  d'ulivo.     1899. 

II  poeta.     1899. 

A  rovescio.     1901. 

Le  due  coscienze.     1901. 
1901.    Romanticismo.     1903. 

La  moglie  di  sua  Eccellenza.     1904. 

II  re  burlone.     1905. 

Papa  Eccellenza.     1906. 

II  giorno  della  Cresima.     1906. 
1909.    Moli^re  e  sua  moglie.     1911. 

La  moglie  giovine.    1913. 

SCARPETTA,   EdOUARDO. 

Lu  caf^  chantant.     1909. 
Na  bona  guagliona.     1909. 
Nun  la  trova  animareta.     1909. 
L'Omno    che    vola :     granne    comrnedia-revista 
fantastico-musicale  del  1908.    1909. 
Selvatico,  Riccardo. 

La  bozzeta  de  I'ogio.     1876. 
I  recini  da  festa.     1876. 

I  morti.     1876. 
SiMONi,  Renato. 

Turlupineide.    Milan,  1908. 
La  secchia  rapita.     1910. 

II  matrimonio  di  Casanova.     (With  U.  OJetti.) 
1910. 

Congedo.     1912. 

II  mistero  di  San  Palamidone.     1912. 
Tramonto.     1914. 
SuiJER,  LUIGI. 

1859.    I  gentiluomini  speculatori. 

1861.  Legittimisti. 

1862.  Spinte  o  sponte. 

1863.  L'ozio. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  287 

1864.    Una  piaga  sociale. 

1867.  Ogni  lasciata  h  persa. 

1868.  Le  amiche. 

1869.  Una  legge  di  Licurgo. 
La  gratitudine. 

Chi  ama  teme. 
Testoni,  Alfredo. 

Quel  non  so  che,     1904. 
Fra  due  guanciali.     1904. 
Ordonanza. 
Duchessina.     1904. 

1904.  In  automobile.    1907. 

1905.  II  Cardinale  Lambertini.     1906. 
Lo  scandalo. 

1907.    In  quieto  vivere.     1907. 

II  successo. 

La  scintilla.     1909. 

La  modella.     1909. 

El  seruv. 

Quella  ch'fa  el  cart. 

Pappagal  ch'our  e  ? 

Quel  che  paga  I'olio. 

II  nostro  prossimo. 

Gioacchino  Rossini. 

Piccolo  Teatro.    1914.    Containing  a  number  of 
farces. 
1915.    II  pomo  della  discordia.     1917. 
1915.     n  gallo  della  checca.     1915. 

TOEELLI,   ACHILLE. 

For  a  complete  list  of  the  comedies  of  Torelli 
see  Mazzoni,  op.  cit.  A  few  of  the  better  known 
are: 

La  verity. 

La  missione  della  donna.    1885. 
Gli  onesti.    1877. 


288         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OF  ITALY 

1867.    I  mariti.     1876. 
1869.    Lamoglie.    1885. 

Trista  realty.     1886. 

La  scuola  degli  artisti. 

Donne  antiche  e  modeme.     1888. 

Chi  disse  donne  disse  amore.     1886. 

Scrollina.     1885. 

1883.  L'lsrealita. 

Le  povere  ragazze.     1886. 
Poesia. 

TUMIATI,   DOMENICO. 

Ramon  Escudo.     1905. 

Risorgimento :  II  Re  Carlo  Alberto.     1909. 

Giovane  Italia.     1910. 

Alberto  di  Guissano.     1913. 

Guerrin  Meschino.     1913. 

II  tessitore.     1914. 

II  meteora.     1915. 

Garibaldi.     1917. 

Ubertis,  Corinne  Teresah. 
1902.     II  giudice.     1903. 

1902.  SulGoeraer.     1904. 

1903.  II  pane  rosso.     1904. 
1905.    L'altra  riva.     1907. 

Per  non  morire.     1910. 
1908.     La  felicity.     1909. 

Verga,  Giovanni. 

1884.  Cavalleria  rusticana.     1893. 

1885.  In  portineria.     1896. 
1896.    Lalupa.     1906. 

1902.    La  caccia  alia  volpe.     1901. 
La  caccia  al  lupo.     1901. 
Dal  tuo  al  mio.     1905. 
La  peccatrice.     1917. 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  APPENDIX  289 


Zambaldi,  Silvio. 
La  fine. 
La  balia. 

Un  dovere  d'umanit^. 
Noi  uomini. 
La  voragine.     1908. 
II  sol  lontano. 
La  quadriglia. 
1908.    La  moglie  del  dottore. 


BOOK  LIST 

Bibliographies 

The  most  important  studies  have  been  marked  with  an 
asterisk. 
*Bollettino  delle  publicazioni    Italiane,   published   by  the 

Bibiioteca  Nazionale.     Rome,  1886-1916. 
Menghini,  M.     Per  la  bibliografia  del  dramma  in  Italia. 

Florence,  1896. 
Nardecchia,  a.     Lista  di  commedie,  tragedie,  etc.    Rome. 

1904. 
Paguani.     Catologo  generale  della  libreria  italiana.     Two 

series,  1847-1899  and  1900-1910.     The  index  has  pro- 
gressed as  far  as  the  letter  S. 
Schriften    der    Gesellschaft  fiir   Theatergeschichte.    Series 

XXI.,  1905-1910. 
There  are  first  rate  bibliographies  also  in : 
*Croce,  B.    La  letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.     Ban,  1915. 
*D'Ancona,  a.  and  Bacci,  O.     Manuale  della  letteratura 

italiana.     Vols.  V.  and  VI.    Florence,  1910. 
Mazzoni,  Guido.    L'Ottocento.     In  series  "  Storia  letteraria 

d'ltalia  scritta  da  una  societa di  professori."   Milan,  1913. 

Critical  Works 

Arnold,  R.  S.    Das  moderne  Drama.    Strassburg,  1912. 
Barbiera,   R.     Polvere   di   palcoscenico,   Teatro   Italiano. 

2  vob.    Catania,  1908. 
Bettoli,  p.     Storia  del  teatro  drammatico  italiano  dalla 


BOOK  LIST  291 

fine  del  secolo  XV.  alia  fine  del  secolo  XX.    Bergamo, 

1901. 
BoccARDi,  A.     Teatro  e  Vita.    Florence. 
Capuana,  Luigi.     II  teatro  italiano  contemporaneo.     1872. 
i    Studii  sulla  letteratura  contemporanea.     1879. 
Per  I'arte.     1885. 
Gli  Ismi  contemporanei.     1889. 
*CosTETTi.     II  teatro  italiano  nel  1800.    Rome,  1901. 
*Croce,  B.    La  letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.     Bari,  1915. 
D'Ambra,  Luigi.     Le  Opere  e  gli  uomini.    Rome-Turin, 

1904. 
*D'Ancona  and  Bacci.    Manuale  della  letteratura  italiana. 

Florence,  1910. 
De  Sanctis,  F.    La  letteratura  italiana  nel  secolo  XIX. 

1897. 
*DoRNis,  Jean.    Le  theatre  italien  contemporain.    Paris, 

19Q-. 
Ferrigni,  M.     II  teatro  drammatico  sperimentale :    Anni 

1903-1905.    Florence. 
Ferrari,  V.    La  letteratura  italiana  modema  e  contempo- 
ranea.   Milan,  1901. 
Grapollo,  Luisa.    Autori  italiani  d'oggi. 
*Hauser,    Otto.    Das    Drama    des   Auslands   seit   1800. 

Leipzig,  1913. 
*Lyonnet,  H.    Le  Th^&tre  hors  de  France :  Italic.    Paris, 

1902. 
Mantovani,  D.    Letteratura  contemporanea.    Turin,  1903. 
Martini,  F.    A1  teatro.    2d  edition,  Florence,  1908. 
*Mazzoni,  Guido.    L'Ottocento.    Milan,  1913. 
McLeod,  a.    Plays  and  Players  in  Modem  Italy.    Chicago, 

1912.  

*Muret,  Maurice.    La  litt^rature  italienne  d'aujourd'hui. 

Paris,  1906. 
Ojetti,  Ugo.    Alia  Scoperta  dei  letterati.     1895. 
La  Morte  d'una  Musa. 


292  THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

OuvA,  D.    II  teatro  in  Italia  nel  1909.    Milan,  1911. 

Note  di  uno  spettatore.     Bologna,  1911. 
Prolss,    R.     Geschichte    des    neueren    Dramas.    Leipzig, 

1881-1883. 
*Roux,   A.    Histoire   de  la  litt^rature   contemporaine   en 

Italie.    Paris,  1876. 
*RoviTO,  D.    Dizionario  dei  letterati  e  Italian!  contempo- 

ranei.    Naples,  1907. 
Salsilli,  a.     Tra  un  atto  e  I'altro.     Palermo,  1914. 
ScALiNGER,  G.  M.     Teatro  sociologico.    Naples,  1902. 
Squillace,   F,      Le   tendenze    presenti    della    letteratura 

italiana.     1899. 
*ToNELLi,  LuiGi.     L'Evoluzione  del  teatro  contemporaneo 

in  Italia.     1913. 
Villanova    d'Ardenghi,    B.      II    teatro    neo-idealistico. 

Palermo,  1908. 
Vossler,    Karl.    Italienische    Literatur   der   Gegenwart. 

Heidelberg,  1914. 
Zabel,  Eugen.    Zur  modemen  Dramaturgie.     Vols.  I.  and 

II.,  Oldenburg  and  Leipzig,  2d  ed.,  1905. 

Magazine  Articles 

Nearly  all  the  plays  that  appear  are  reviewed  in  the  journals : 

La  Fanfulla  della  Domenica;  Rivista  teatrale  italiana; 

Carrier e   della   Sera;      La   Nuova   Antologia;     Rivista 

d'ltalia. 
A  .  .  .    Ein  Italienisches   Nationaltheater.     Deutsche  Zei- 

tung,  1905,  39 : 3. 
Bernardini,    F.    II    teatro    in    Italia.    Rivista    Trwdema, 

February  and  March,  1903. 
BiAGi,  E.     Reviews  of  Italian  Literature  in  the  Atheneum, 

1892-1906  passim. 
BuTTi,  E.  A.    II  teatro  pubblico  in  Italia.     Nuova  Antologia, 

1902,  186 :  362. 


BOOK  LIST  293 

Cechi,    E.     II   teatro   negli   ultiml   cinquant'anni.     Nvma 

Antologia,  1901. 
Claab,  M.     Das  italienische  Theater  der  Gegenwart.    Biikne 

und  Welt.     Jahrg.  11,  Halbjahrg.  1. 
DoBNis,  J.     Dialect  Plays  in  Italy.     Contemporary  Review, 

85 :  76. 
Lemmi,  C.    The  Italian  Stage  To-day.     The  Drama,  1916, 

p.  232. 
Livingstone,   A.     Antipathy  or  Antithesis.     //  Carroccio, 

1917,  pp.  230  and  355. 
LTtalico.     Italienisches  Theater.    Die  Zeit,  1003,  Si:  118. 
Mabtini,  Giuseppe  di.     I  nemici  del  teatro  in  prosa  in 

Italia.     Revista  teatrale  italiana,  1901.     Vols.  I.  and  II. 
Ojetti,  Ugo.    Le  Mouvement  litt^raire  en  Italie.    Revue 

des  Revues,  3  :  403  and  7 :  411. 
L'Invasion  du  theatre  franfais  en  Italie.     La  Rennaissance 

Laiine,  1902,  1 :  406. 
RicciABDi.     Italian  literature   affected  by   the  war.     The 

Nation,  1916,  101 :  682. 
Tukeb,  M.  a.  R.     Italian  Realism  and  Art.    Fortnightly 

Review,  89 :  874. 

Chapteb  I.    The  Foundations 

In  addition  to  the  works  cited  above  consult : 
Babdazzi.     Felice  Cavallotti  nella  vita,  nella  politica,  nelle 

arte.    Palermo. 
Castbucci,  C.     II  teatro  di  Paolo  Ferrari,  in  Saggi  Critici, 

Citta  di  Castello,  1898. 
De  Blasi.    Pietro  Cossa  e  la  tragedia.    Florence,  1911. 
Febeabi,  V.     Paolo  Ferrari,  la  vita  e  il  teatro.    Milan,  1899. 
Fobtis,  Leon.     Riccordi  e  note.    Milan,  1880. 
Ho  WELLS,  W.  D,     Modern  Italian  Poets. 
Mabini,  G.  F.    Paolo  Giacometti.    Mantua,  1917. 
RoMussi.    Opere  drammatiche  di  G.  Bovio.    Milan,  1904. 


294         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OP  ITALY 

Sabbatini.     Drammi  storici  e  memorie.    Turin,  1864. 
Trevisani.     Gli  autori  drammatici  contemporanei :   Pietro 

Cossa.    Rome,  1885. 
YoEiCK  (Ferrigni).    Pietro  Cossa  e  il  dramma  modemo. 

Florence,  1905. 

Magazine  Articles 

Austin,  A.    Pietro  Cossa,  Dramatist.    Fortnightly  Review, 

1882,  p.  1. 
Levi.     Saggi  bibliografici  sul  Pietro  Cossa.     Rivista  hiblio- 

grafica  ed  archeologica,  18 :  96. 
LucHAiRE,  J.     Achille  Torelli.     Revue  Latine,  October  20, 

1902. 
MoNTECCHi,  L.  R.    Paolo  Giacometti.     La  Maschera,  1909. 
Valeri.     L'Efficacia  del  teatro  francese  sul  teatro  di  P. 

Ferrari.     Revista  d'ltalia,  vol.  XII.,  p.  257. 
Cossa,  P.    Pietro    Cossa.     Nazionale   Zeitung,   November 

19,  1880.    Cossa's  autobiography. 


Chapter  II.    Giuseppe  Giacosa 

Andreotti,  a.    Tre  glorie  italiane.     Alessandria,  1908. 
Capuana.    Studii    suUa    letteratura    contemporanea.      2d 

series.    Catania,  1882. 
Carducci,  G.    Opere.    Vol.  X,  p.  39. 
Clark,  B.  H.    The  Continental  Drama  of  To-day.    New 

York,  1914. 
Croce,  B.     La  letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.     Bari,  1915. 

With  good  bibliography. 
Gatti,  G.  N.     II  teatro  di  Giuseppe  Giacosa.    Turin,  1914. 
Martini,  F.    A1  teatro.    Florence,  1905. 
Updegraff,  E.  and  A.     Introduction  to  the  volume  "As 

the  Leaves,  The  Stronger,  Sacred  Ground."    New  York, 

1915. 


BOOK   LIST  2d5 


Magazine  Articles 


L'Oliva.  Giuseppe  Giacosa.  Giomale  (Tltalia,  Septem- 
ber 3,  1906. 

Ojetti,  Ugo.  Giuseppe  Giacosa.  Ntuyva  Antologia,  Septem- 
ber 16,  1906. 

Smith,  S.    Giuseppe  Giacosa.     The  Drama,  May,  1913. 


Chapter  III.    The  Earlier  Realists 

Arcari,  p.     Un  mecanismo  umano.     Milan,  1910. 

Boutet,  E.    Don  Chisciotte  di  Roma.     Chapter  on  Sicilia 
verista  e  Sicilia  vera. 

Capuana,  L.     Studii  sulla  letteratura  contemporanea. 
Per  I'arte. 
Gli  Ismi  contemporanei. 

Croce,  B.    La  letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.     Ban,  1915. 

Garnett,  Richard.    A  History  of  Italian  Literature. 

ToRRACCA.     Saggi  e  Rassegni.    Livorno,  1885. 

Vossler,  K.    Italienische  Literatur  der  Gegenwart.    Heidel- 
berg, 1914. 

Magazine  Articles 

Arcari,  P.     G.   Rovetta.    Revue  de  Fribourg,   December, 

1910. 
Bracco,  R.    G.  Rovetta.     II  Mattino  di  Napoli,  November  8 

and  9,  1910. 
Ferri.     G.  Rovetta.     Niu/ca  Antologia,  May  16,  1910. 
Fleres.     Per  Luigi  Capuana.     Nuova  Antologia,  265 :  197. 
Hazard,  P.     G.  Rovetta  d'apr^  une  recente  publication. 

Revue  des  Deux  Mondes,  January  15,  1911. 
Kahn,  Gustave.    Verga  et  D'Annunzio.     Nouvelle  Revue, 

November  1,  1903. 
Levi.    Marco  Praga.    Nuova  Antologia,  259 :  197. 


296         THE   CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF  ITALY 

Sacchetti,  R.  G.    Rovetta :  Le  idee,  le  azione  e  gli  scritti 

d'uno  scapulo  illustre.     Varietas,  February,  1906. 
SiMONi,  R.     G.  Rovetta.     Corriere  della  Sera,  May  9,  1910. 

Chapter  IV.    Gabriele  D'Annunzio 

There  is  a  good  D'Annunzio  bibliography  in  La  Critica, 
11:160;   111:473;  VI:256;   IX  :  261 ;   XII :  127. 

For  the  articles  in  English  see : 
Chandler,  F.  W.    Aspects  of  Modern  Drama.    New  York, 

1915. 
Clark,  B.  H.    The  Continental  Drama  of  To-day.     New 

York,  1914. 
See  particularly : 
Blennerhasset,  C.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.     Berlin. 
Borgese,  G.  a.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.     Naples,  1909. 
Capuana,  Luigi.     Gli  Ismi  contemporanei. 

Per  I'arte. 
Crawford.     Studies  in  Foreign  Literature.     London,  1899. 
Croce,  B.     La  letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.     Bari,  1915. 
DoNATi,  A.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.     Rome,  1912. 
Dukes,  Ashley.     Modern  Dramatists.     Chicago,  1912. 
Gargiulo,  a.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.     Naples,  1912. 
HuNEKER,  James.     Iconoclasts.     New  York,  1905. 
MuRET,  Maurice.    La  litterature  italienne  d'aujourd'hui. 

Paris,  1906. 
Mantovani,  D.     La  letteratura  contemporanea. 
MoRELLO,  V.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.     Rome,  1910. 
PuTTKAMER.     Gabriele   D'Annunzio.     Berlin    and   Leipzig, 

1904. 
SiDGEWiCK,  H.  D.     Essays  on  Great  Writers.    Boston,  1903. 
Symons,  Arthur.     Studies  in  Prose  and  Verse.     London, 

1904. 
TissoT,  E.    Les  sept  plaies  et  les  sept  beautfe  de  I'ltalie. 

Paris,  1900. 


BOOK   LIST  297 

ToNELLi,  LuiGi.  La  tragedia  di  Gabriele  D'Annunzio. 
Florence,  1915. 

Zabel,  E.  Zur  modernen  Dramaturgie.  Vol.  III.  Olden- 
burg, 1905. 

Magazine  Articles 

Abundel  del  Re.    The  Poetry  of  Gabriele  D'Annunzio. 

The  Nineteenth  Century,  1915. 
Del  Vecchio.    Le  Donne  nei  drammi  di  G.  D'Annunzio, 

Revista  d' Italia,  10 :  492. 
Destree,  Jules.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.    Remie  de  Paris, 

September,  1917. 
DoBNis,  Jean.    Le  th^dtre  de  Gabriele  D'Annunzio.    Reme 

des  Deux  Mondes,  February  1,  1904. 
Flat,  Paul.     Le  theatre  id^aliste :  G.  D'Annunzio,    Revue 

politique  et  litteraire,  October  3,  1903. 
James,   Henry.    Gabriele  D'Annunzio.    Quurterly  Review, 

vol.  199  for  1904. 
Kahn,   Gustave.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.    Nouvelle  Remie, 

November  1,  1903. 
MuRET,  Maurice.     M.  Gabriele  D'Annunzio  et  la  critique 

italienne.    Remie  des  Deux  Mondes,  1913,  p.  180. 
Pellissier,  L.  G.     Gabriele  D'Annunzio.     Revv^  des  lettres 

fran^aises  et  ^ranghes,  vol.  IL  for  1900. 
Sharp,  W.    The  dramas  of  Gabriele  D'Annunzio.     Fort- 
nightly   Review,    74:391.    Reprinted    in    Studies    and 

Appreciations,  New  York,  1912. 
SiGHELE.     I  tipi  femminili  nell'opere  di  Gabriele  D'Annun- 
zio.    Nuova  Antologia,  151 :  609. 
SiMBOU.    D'Annunzio   the   Dramatist.     The   Critic,   1904, 

45:425. 

Chapter  V.    The  Later  Realists 

Antona-Traversi,  C.     Introduction  to  the  Treves  edition 
of  Le  Rozeno.    Milan. 


298         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

CosTETTi.     II  teatro  italiano  nel  1800.     Rome,  1901. 
DoNADONi,  E.     Antonio  Fogazzaro.     Naples,  1913. 
DoRNis,    Jean.     Le   roman    italien  contemporain.    Paris, 

1900. 
Kennard,  H.  S.     Italian  Romance  Writers.    New  York, 

1906. 
McLeod,  a.    Plays  and  Players  in  Modem  Italy.    Chicago, 

1912. 
ToNELLi,    L.     L'evoluzione    del   teatro    contemporaneo  in 

Italia.     1913. 

Magazine  Article 

Fay,  Francis.    Giannino  Antona-Traversi,  the  Man  and 
his  Plays.     The  Theatre,  May,  1913,  17 :  138. 

Chapter  VI.    Roberto  Bracco 

CosTETTi.     II  teatro  italiano  nel  1800.     Rome,  1901. 
DoRNis,   Jean.    Le   theatre   italien   contemporain.     Paris, 

190-. 
MuRET,  Maurice.    La  litt^rature  italienne  d'aujourd'hui. 

Paris,  1906. 
ToNELLi,   L.     L'evoluzione  der  teatro  contemporaneo  in 

Italia.     1913. 

Magazine  Articles 

The  Countess  Coquette.     The  Theatre,  June,  1907,  7 :  144- 

145. 
Don  Pietro  Caruso.     The  Theatre,  January,  1912,  12  :  231. 
Don  Pietro   Caruso.     Dramaiic  Mirror,  January  31,  1912, 

67 :  35. 
I  Love  You.     London  Graphic,  September  27,  1913,  88 :  600. 
Orange  Blossoms.     Dramatic  Mirror,  May  21,  1914,  59 :  20. 
Three.     Academy,  February  8,   1913,   84:175;    Illustrated 

London  News,  February,  1913,  142 :  162. 


BOOK  LIST  299 

The   Honorable   Lover.    Dramatic  Mirror,  November    13, 

1915,  74 : 8;    The  Bookman,  February,  1916,  42 :  646. 
Night  of  Snow.     Dramaiic  Mirror,  October  16,  1915,  74 : 8. 

Chapter  VII 

Bracco,  a.    The  Life  of  the  Famous  Actress,  Eleonora  Duse. 

New  York,  1893. 
Chatfield-Taylor,  H.  C.    Goldoni.    New  York,  1914. 
Croce,  B.    La  letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.     Ban,  1915. 
FiuPPi.    Giacinta  Gallina.    Venice,  1903. 
Gaeta,    F.    Salvatore    di    Giacomo.      Con    bibliografia. 

Florence,  1911. 
Lyonnet,  H.    Pulcinella"et  Cie.    Paris,  1899. 
Mazzoni,  G.    L'Ottocento.    Milan,  1913. 
Rasi,    LuiGi.       I   Comici   italiani,   biografia,  bibliografia, 

iconografia.    Florence,  1902. 
Eleonora  Duse.     1901. 
RispoLi,  C.    La  vita  pratica  del  teatro.    Florence,  1903. 
Rossi,  E.    Studi  drammatici. 

Rossi,  L.     Storia  della  letteratura  italiana.    Vol.  III.,  p.  307 
Salvini,    Tommaso.     Ricordi,    aneddoti    ed    impressioni. 

Milan. 
Scherillo,  M.    La  commedia  dell'arte  in  Italia,  in  Sivdii 

e  profili.    Turin,  1884. 
Smith,  Winifred.     The  commedia  dell'arte.     New  York, 

1912.    With  good  bibliography. 
Symons,  a.     Studies  in  the  Seven  Arts.     1906. 
Vossler,  Karl.     Salvatore  di  Giacomo,  ein  Napolitanischer 

Volksdichter,  in  Wort,  Bild  und  Musik.  Heidelberg,  1898. 
Zabel,  E.    Zur  Modernen  Dramaturgic.    Vol.  II.    Olden- 
burg, 1905. 

Magazine  Articles 

BiSTOLFi.    Le    memorie    di   Ferravilla.    Ntuna   AntologiOt 
December  16,  1911. 


300         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA   OF   ITALY 

Craig,  Gordon.    An  Appreciation  of  Eleonora  Duse.     The 

Mask,  1:12. 
D'Ambra,  Luigi.    Carlo  Bertolazzi.    NiLova  ArUologia,  267 : 

461. 
Fambri.     Giacinta  Gallina.     Nuova  Antologia,   March   16, 

1897. 
Lahm,    Ka.rl.      Sizilianisches    Bauerntheater.      Illustrierte 

Zeitung,  1908,  3371 :  62. 
Levi.    Femiccio  Benini.     Niurca  Antologia,  155 :  483. 
Sacchetti,  R.     Eduardo  Ferra villa.     Niurca  Antologia,  July 

1,  1908. 
Secretant.    La  vita  e  le  opere  di  G.  Gallina.    Rassegna 

Nazimde,  1898,  103  :  791. 
Stahl,    E.    J.      Sizilianische   Theaterkunst.      Schavhilkne, 

Jahrg.  11,  No.  15:6. 
Symons,  a.     a  Memory  of  Eleonora  Dnse.     Vanity  Fair, 

July,  1917,  p.  41. 
Zimmern,    Helen.     Eleonora    Duse.     Fortnightly    Review, 

73 :  980. 
Anonymous.    La   Giovinezza   di   Eleonora    Duse.    Nuova 

Antologia,  177:21. 
Femiccio  Benini  e  il  teatro  dialettale.     Nvxrca  Antologia, 

266:131. 
The  Sicilian  Players.     The  Spectator,  100 :  336 ;  Illustrated 

Lcmdrni  News,  136 :  294. 
Giovanni  Grasso.     Illustrated  London  News,  136 :  274  and 

461;     The    Graphic,   81:399   and   82:723;     Saturday 

Review,  109:427. 

Chapter  VIII.    The  Younger  Generation 

Bordeaux,  Henri.    La  vie  au  theatre.    Series  IIL    Paris, 

1915. 
CosTETTi.     II  teatro  italiano  nel  1800.     Rome,  1901. 
Croce,  B.    La  letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.    Bari^  1915. 


BOOK  LIST  301 

GoGGio,  E.    Preface  to  his  edition  of  Pirandello's  Lumie  di 

Sicilia.    New  York,  1916. 
RoviTO,  D.    Dizionario  dei  letterati,  etc.    Naples,  1907. 

Magazine  Articles 

D'Ambra,  L.    Review  of  Borg's  Nuda.    Niurca  Antologia, 

271:401. 
Ferrigni,    M.    L'Arte    poetica    di    Sem    Benelli.    Niuyoa 
Giomale,  May  8,  1909;    reprinted  as  introduction  to 
the  Treves  edition  of  La  Cena  delle  beffe. 
HuTCHiNS,  Will.    Sem  Benelli  as  Dramatic  Poet.     Yale 

Review,  new  series,  II :  130,  October,  1912. 
Lemmi,  Charles.     Sem  Benelli's  Marriage  of  the  Centaurs, 

Drama,  VII :  594. 
Livingstone,    Arthur.    A   Successful   Italian   Dramatist. 

Nation,  99 :  82. 
Rosso  DI  San  Secondo.    Luigi  Pirandello.    Nuova  Antologia, 

265 :  390. 
Anonymous. 
Sem  Benelli,  Theatre,  29 :  352. 
Sem  Benelli,  Current  Opinion,  66 :  364. 
Sem  Benelli,  Dial,  66 :  534. 
Sem  Benelli,  Forum,  61 :  629. 
Natim,  108 :  618. 

Italian  Literature  in  The  International  Year  Book,  1917. 
Niccodemi's  The  Prodigal  Husband.     Bookman,  40 :  185. 
Niccodemi's  The  Shadow.    Book  News  Monthly,  33  :  402 ; 

Bookman,  41 :  62. 
Niccodemi's  Remnant.     The  Nation  (London),  104 :  486. 
Niccodemi's  /  Pescecani.    Eco  dei  Teatri,  February  10, 
1914. 


302         THE  CONTEMPORARY  DRAMA  OP  ITALY 

Chapter  IX.    Futurism  and  Other  Isms 

Croce,  B.    La  Letteratura  della  nuova  Italia.    Ban,  1915. 
Marinetti,  F.  T.     See  all  the  novels  and  critical  works  of 
this  leader  of  the  Futurists. 
Zang  Tumb  Tumb !    Milan,  1914. 
Democrazia  Futurista.     Milan,  1919. 
RicciARDi,  AcHiLLE.     II  tcatro  del  colore.    Milan,  1919. 
RussoLO,  L.     L'Arte  dei  ruraori.     Milan,  1916. 
VossLER,  K.     Italienische  Literatur  der  Gegenwart.     Heidel- 
berg, 1914. 

Magazine  Articles 

See  the  Futurist's  Reviews  Lacerha  and  Poena.     1909,  ff. 
Cram,  Mildred.    Are  You  Ready  for  the  Futurist  Theater  ? 

Vanity  Fair,  April  and  May,  1919. 
Gerrard,  T.  J.    Futurists.     The  lAving  Age,  274 :  652. 
Livingstone,  Arthur.    Antipathy  or  Antithesis.    II  Car- 

rocdo,  1917,  5 :  230  and  355. 
Marinetti,  F.  T.    The  Futurist  manifesto  in  Le  Figaro, 

Paris,  1909. 
Samuel,  H.  B.    The  Future  of  Futurism.    Living  Age,  277 : 

739. 
Smalley,  R.  F.    Futurism  and  the  Futurists.    Living  Age, 

282 :  713. 
Anonymous.    Futurism  and  the  Theatre.     The  Mask,  6: 

188. 
Anonymous.    The  Rapid  Transit  Drama  of  the  Italian 

Futurists  under  Marinetti.    Current  Opinion,  66 :  299. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Acqua  cheta,  L\  Novelli.     See 

Still  Waters 
Acqua  passata,  U,  Novelli,  229 
Acquazzoni  in  montagna,  Gia- 

cosa.     See    Mountain    Tor- 
rents 
Acquitted    Man,    The,    C.    A. 

Traversi,  153 
Acting  in  Italy,  194-195 
Ad   arme   corte,    Bracco.     See 

Concealed  Weapons 
Adelchi,  Manzoni,  15,  16,  18 
uEstheticism,  235 
After  44  Years,  C.  A.  Traversi, 

153 
Afterwards,  Novelli,  227 
Agnese,  Cavalotti,  24 
Aguglia,  Mimi,  67 
Aicard,  Jean,  191 
Aigrette,  L',  Nieeodemi,  219 
Ajax,  Foscolo,  20 
Alaferita,  Baffico.     See  Broken 

Wing 
Albert's  Marriage,  C.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 150 
Alfieri,  7,  11,  12,  13,  16,  184, 

245 
All  for  Love,  Ojetti,  232 
All  for  Nothing,  Butti,  147 
All'uscita,  Pirandello.     See  At 

the  Door 
Alia  cittd,  di  Roma,   Rovetta. 

See  In  the  City  of  Rome 
Al  monte  di  pietda,  Bertolazzi. 

See  In  the  Pawn-shop 
AltaviUa,  P.,  203 
Altra   riva,    L',    Ubertis.     See 

Other  Bank,  The 


Amante    lontano,    U,    Bracco. 

See  Distant  Lover,  The 
Amateur    theatrical    societies, 

199 
Arnica,    L',    G.    A.    Traversi. 

See  Friend,  The 
Amicis,  E.  de,  37 
Amico,  V,  Butti.     See  Friend, 

The 
Amore  dei  tre  re,  Benelli.     See 

Love  of  the  Three  Kings,  The 
Amore   sui   tetti,    L',    Novelli. 

See  Love  on  the  House-tops 
Andb,  F.,  186,  192 
Anima,  L',  Butti.     See  Soid, 

The 
Anima,  L\  Ubertis.    See  SovX, 

The 
Anima   semplice,   G.   A.   Tra- 
versi.    See  Simple  Soul 
Antoine,  Andr6,  63 
Antona-Traversi,         CamUlo, 

149-154,  224,  249 
Antona-Traversi,  Giannino,  53, 

149,  154^162,  167,  230,  249 
Antonio  Foscarini,  Niccolini,  20 
Archer,  W.,  64 
Aretino,  65 

Argentina,  Teatro,  198 
Ariana,  Lopez,  225 
Ariosto,  252 
Aristophanes,  165 
Arnaldo  di  Brescia,  Niccolini, 

20,  21 
Arnold,  M.,  12 
Art  theatre,  243 
As  the  Leaves,  Giacosa,  35,  36, 

48,  56-58,  76,  126,  227,  247 


305 


306 


INDEX 


Ascent  of  Olympus,  The,  G.  A. 

Traversi,  53,  158,  161 
Assolto,    L',    C.   A.    Traversi. 

See  Acquitted  Man,  The 
Assunta   Spina,    di    Giacomo, 

208 
A  San  Francesco,  di  Giacomo, 

208 
At  the  Door,  Pirandello,  221 
Atheists,  The,  Butti,  142,  249 
Augier,  E.,  6,  31,  35,  62,  63, 

182,  247 
Automate,  L',  Butti,  140 
Avventura     di     viaggio,      Un, 

Bracco.     See  Traveling  Ad- 
venture, A 

Bdbho  Goumas,  C.  A.  Traversi, 

153 
Baffico,  G.,  162 
Bahr,  Hermann,  180,  260 
Balzac,  H.  de,  59,  62 
Banville,  Th.  de,  190 
Baraonda,    La,   Rovetta.     See 

Hubbub,  The 
Barrfes,  M.,  120 
Barrymore,  Ethel,  218 
Basso  porta,  Cognetti,  208 
Baudelaire,  Ch.,  66,  120 
Bavaglio,   II,   C.  A.   Traversi. 

See  Gag,  The 
Beast   and   the   Beauties,    The, 

Lopez,  91,  225 
Beaumarchais,  7 
Becque,  H.,  6,  13,  35,  50,  53, 

62,  63,   89,    150,   161,   163, 

249 
Beginning  of  the  Century,  Ro- 
vetta, 80 
BeV   Apollo,   II,  Praga.       See 

Handsome  Apollo 
Bellotti-Bon,  Louis,  182 
Benelli,   Sem,   7,  27,  75,  163, 

180,  199,  210-216,  233,  236, 

250 
Benini,  F.,  205,  207 


Bernhardt,  Sarah,  37,  44,  184, 

186,  189 
Bersezio,  V.,  154,  205,  253 
Bertolazzi,  Carlo,  207 
Between  Two  Pillows,  Testoni, 

231 
Bianca  Capello,  Calvi,  217 
Biancadella  Porta,  Gamboni,  25 
Bite,  The,  Pirandello,  221 
Bitter  Fruit,  The,  Butti,  140 
Bitter  Fruit,  The,  Bracco,  167, 

170 
BjSrnsen,  B.,  176 
Bleeding  Mummy,  The,  Marl* 

netti,  241 
Boccaccio,  G.,  113,  217 
Boccioni,  G.,  242 
Bohhme,  La,  Giacosa,  60 
Boiardo,  252 
Boito,  A.,  37,  217,  233 
Bolla  di  Sapone,  Una,  Bersezio. 

See  Soap-bubble,  The 
Bolognese,  D.,  25 
Bookworm,   The,  Benelli,  212, 

216 
Bordeaux,  H.,  quoted,  256,  260 
Borelli,  Lyda,  193 
Borg,  Washington,   167,  217- 

218,  233,  249 
Boutet,  E.,    quoted,  73,  112, 

198,  260,  261 
Bovio,  G.,  25,  190 
Bracdaletto,  II,  G.  A.  Traversi. 

See  Bracelet,  The 
Bracco,  R.,  7,  13,  22,  53,  162, 

163-180,  190,  192,  230,  236, 

247,  249,  253,  255 
Bracelet,  The,  G.  A.  Traversi, 

156 
Brieux,  E.,  5,  158,  255 
Broken  Wing,  Baffico,  162 
Brother-in-arms,  The,  Giacosa, 

41,  247 
Brutto  e  le  belle,  II,  Lopez.    See 

Beast  and  the  Beauties,  The 
Buddha,  Gubematis,  25 


INDEX 


307 


Buffoon   King,    The,  Rovetta, 

80,  82 
Buona    figliuola,    La,    Lopez. 

See  Good  Girl,  The 
Butti,  E.  A.,  7,  13,  135-148, 

149,  151,  154,  162,  166,  190, 

192,  223,  249,  253 
By  Night,  Lopez,  224 

Cabiria,  D'Annunzio,  124-126 
Caccia  al  lupo.  La,  Verga.     See 

Wolf-hunt,  The 
Caccia  alia  volpe.   La,  Verga. 

See  Fox-hunt,  The 
Calna,  Bolognese,  25 
Caio  Gracco,  Monti,  19 
Calderon,  10 
Calvario,  C.  A.  Traversi.     See 

Calvary 
Calvary,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 
Calvi,  P.,  217,  233 
Cameriera  astuta.   La,  Castel- 

vecchio.  See        Clever 

Chamber-maid,  The 
Cammarano,  F,,  203 
Canapone,  Novelli,  227,  228 
Cantico   dei   Cantici,    II.     Ca- 

valotti.     See  Song  of  Songs, 

The 
Capuana,  L.,  33,  50,  62,  64, 

66,  69,  165,  193,  234,  237, 

247 
Caracalla,  Calvi,  217 
Cardinale  Lambertini,  II,  Tes- 

toni,  231,  257 
Carduoci,  J.,  65,  97,  252 
Caxignano,      Compagnia,      at 

Milan,  197 
Caritd  mondana,   G.  A.   Tra- 
versi.    See  Worldly  Charity 
Casa  del  sonno.  La,  Bertolazzi. 

See  Palace  of  Sleep,  The 
Casa    di    Goldoni,    La,    192, 

198 
Casa   mia !     Casa   mia !  No- 
velli.   See  Home !    Home ! 


Castello   del   sogno,   II,   Butti. 

See  Castle  of  Dreams,  The 
Castelvecchio,  R.,  32 
Castle  of  Dreams,   The,  Butti, 

146 
Catechismo  di  Susette,  II,  Borg. 

See  Susette's  Catechism 
Cat's  Claw,  The,  Giacosa,  45 
Cavalcanti,  G.,  97 
Cavaliere  d'  industria,  II,  Mar- 
tini.    See  Crook,  The 
Cavalleria     rusticana,     Verga. 

See  Rustic  Chivalry 
Cavalotti,  F.,  24,  25,  27,  31, 

65,246 
Celeste,  Marenco,  27 
Cena   delle   beffe.   La,   Benelli. 

See  Supper  of  Jokes,  The 
Cerlone,  F.,  203 
Cesareo,  G.  A.,  217,  233 
Changeling,  The,  Novelli,  229 
Chatterer,  The,  Bracco,  178 
Chbvrefeuille,  La,  D'Annunzio. 

See  Honeysuckle,  The 
Chiachierina,  La,  Bracco.     See 

Chatterer,  The 
Children,  The,  C.  A.  Traversi, 

151 
Child's  Prayer,  The,  C.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 153 
Chiocciola,    La,    Novelli.    See 

Snail,  The 
Christ  at  the  Feast  of  Purim, 

Bovio,  25 
Christmas  Eve,  204 
Cino  da  Pistoja,  97 
Cittd.  moria.  La,  D'Annunzio. 

See  Dead  City,  The 
Civetta,    La,    G.   A.   Traversi. 

See  Coquette,  The 
Civil    Death,    Giaoometti,     6, 

185,  194,  246 
Cleopatra,  Bolognese,  25 
Cleopatra,  Cossa,  27 
Clever      Chamber-maid,      The, 

Castelvecchio,  32 


308 


INDEX 


Closed  Door,  The,  Praga,  92 
Coat  of  Marten-fur,  The,  G.  A. 

Traversi,  157 
Codicillo    dello    Zio    Venanzio, 

Ferrari.     See   Uncle  Venan- 

zio's  Will 
Cognetti,  G.,  75,  208 
Cohan,  George,  226 
Colpa  degli  altri,  La,  Baffico. 

See  Other  People's  Fault 
Come  le  foglie,   Giacosa.     See 

As  the  Leaves 
Comedy  of  the  Pest,  Rasi,  217 
Commedia  dell'arte,  8,  201-202 
Concealed     Weapons,     Bracco, 

170 
Consecrated  Eyes,  Bracco,  177 
Conte  di  Carmagnola,  Manzoni, 

16,  16,  18 
Conte  Rosso,  II,  Giacosa.     See 

Red  Count,  The 
Contessa  di  Challant,  La,  Gia- 
cosa.    See  Lady  of  Challant, 

The 
Coquette,  The,  G.  A.  Traversi, 

53,  157,  160,  161 
Coriolanus,  Monti,  19 
Comeille,  P.,  7 
Corra,  Bruno,  242 
Corradini,  E.,  242 
Corregfgio,  101 
Corsa   al    piacere.    La,    Butti. 

See  Race  for  Pleasure,  The 
Ck>ssa,  P.,  4,  6,  25-27,  33,  215, 

236,  246 
Cradle,  The,  Bracco,  177 
Craig,  Gordon,  125,  241,  243, 

244 
Crist,  La,  Praga.     See  Crisis, 

The 
Crisis,  The,  Praga,  91 
Crista    alia    festa    di    Purim, 

Bovio.     See    Christ    at    the 

Feast  of  Purim 
Croce,  B.,  quoted,  26,  31,  42, 

129,  133,  247,  250,  258 


Cronica  Bizantina,  98 
Crook,  The,  Martini,  32 
Cuckoo,  The,  Butti,  137,  147 
Cucolo,  II,  Butti.     See  Cuckoo, 

The 
Culla,  La,  Bracco.     See  Cradle, 

The 
Cupola,  La,  Novelli,  227 
Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  Rostand, 

210 

Dal  tuo  al  mio,  Verga,  73 
Dam£  aux  camilias,  La,  Dumas 

fils,  13 
Dance  macabre,  C.  A.  Traversi, 

151 
D'Annunzio,  G.,  7,  66,  75,  94- 

134,  149,  161,  163,  180,  187, 

189,  190,  194,  211,  235,  236, 

241,  250,  259 
Dante,  21,  97,  113,  252 
Danza  macabra,  C.  A.  Traversi. 

See  Dance  macabre 
Daudet,  A.,  50 

Daughter  of  Jorio,  The,  D'An- 
nunzio,   96,    114^115,    116, 

188 
Dead  City,   The,  D'Annunzio, 

99,  101,  104-106,  114,  124, 

132,  188 
Death  of  Dararata,  Gubematis, 

25 
Debussy,  CL,  121 
Del  Testa,  Tommaso  G.,  32 
Deserters,  The,  Baffico,  162 
Desertori,  I,  Baffico.     See  De- 

serters.  The 
Diderot,  D.,  13 
Di  Notte,  Lopez.     See  By  Night 
Diritti    delV    anima,    Giacosa. 

See  Rights  of  the  Soul 
Diritto   di   vivere,    II,    Bracco. 

See  Right  to  Live,  The 
Discipline,  Testoni,  231 
Dishonest  Men,  The,  Rovetta. 

See  78,  232 


INDEX 


309 


DisonesH,     I,     Rovetta.     See 

Dishonest  Men,   The 
Distant  Lover,  The,  Bracco,  177 
Do  not  unto  others,  Bracco,  164, 

177 
Doctor's  Duty,  The,  Pirandello, 

221 
Doctor's  Wife,  The,  Zambaldi, 

232 
Doll's  House,  The,  Ibsen,  136, 

253 
Don  Matteo,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 
Don  Pietro  Caruso,  Bracco,  173, 

249 
Donna,    Una,    Bracco.        See 

Woman,  A 
Donna   in   seconde   nozze.    La, 

Del  Testa.    See  Second  Wife, 

The 
Donna  Romantica,  La,  Castel- 

vecchio.         See     Romantic 

Woman,  The 
Dopo,  Novelli.   See  Afterwards 
Dopo  44  anni,  C.  A.  Traversi. 

See  After  44  Years 
Dorina's  Trilogy,  Rovetta,  78, 

82,  249 
Dornis,  Jean,  quoted,  33,  49 
Dostoievski,  F.,  79,  100 
Doubt,  The,  Praga,  91 
Dovero  del  medico,   II,   Piran- 
dello.    See    Doctor's    Duty, 

The 
Drama,  12 

Dramma  medievale,  24 
Dream  of  an  Autumn  Sunset, 

The,   D'Annunzio,   96,    102, 

103-104 
Dream  of  a  Spring   Morning, 

The,  D'Annunzio,  102,  132 
Drew,  John,  218 
Dubito,  II,  I*raga.     See  Doubt, 

The 
Duchessina,  Testoni,  231 
Du^  case,  Le,  Praga.     See  Two 

Houses,  The 


Duel,  The,  Ferrari,  31 
DueUo,  II,  Ferrari.     See  Duel, 

The 
Dumas  fils.  A.,  6,  13,  31,  62, 

63,  92,   163,  164,  182,   187, 

247 
Duse,  E.,  90,   103,   126,   183, 

186-190;  quoted,  195 

Earth  or  Fire,  C.  A.  Traversi, 

151 
Echegaray,  J.,  260 
Egoist,  The,  Bertolazzi,  207 
Egoista,    U ,    Bertolazzi.     See 

Egoist,  The 
Elena,  Romagnoli,  217 
Emanuel,  G.,  192 
Emperor  or  Galilean,  Ibsen,  257 
Enamoured       Woman,        The, 

Praga,  90,  92 
Enchantment,  The,  Butti,  140 
Enchantment,  Capuana,  66 
End  of  an  Ideal,   The,  Butti, 

136,  141,  147 
End  of  Love,  The,  Bracco,  167, 

170 
Enemy,  The,  Baffico,  162 
Enemy,  The,  Niccodemi,  220 
Erede,    L',   Praga.     See   Heir, 

The 
Eruption  of  Vesuvius,  The,  203 
Eschylus,  10 
Euripides,  120 
Ever  thus  !  Butti,  136,  146 
Every  man  for  himself  !  Lopez, 

225 
Eyes  of  the  Heart,  The,  Gallina, 

206 

Falcone,  Armando,  193 
Falconer  of  Pietro  Ardena,  The, 

Marenco,  24 
Falconiere    di    Pietr'   Ardena, 

Marenco,  24 
Famiglia  rovinata.  La,  Qallina. 

See  Ruined  Family,  The 


310 


INDEX 


Fanciulli,  J,  C.  A.  Traversi. 
See  Children,  The 

Fantasmi,  I,  Bracco.  See  Phan- 
tasms 

Favre,  Gina,  193 

Fedeltd  dei  mariti,  La,  G.  A. 
Traversi.  See  Faithfulness 
of  Husbands,  The 

Fedra,  D'Annunzio,  96,  99, 
104,  111,  120,  129,  132 

FelicitA,  La,  Ubertis.  See 
Happiness 

Femme  de  Claude,  La,  Dumas 
fils,  13 

Ferdinand  Lasalle,  Calvi,  217 

Ferrari,  Paolo,  11,  13,  31-32, 
33,  49,  62,  63,  71,  183 

Ferravilla,  Ed.,  207 

Festival  Days,  Bertolazzi,  208 

Feudalism,  Guimera,  193 

Fiaccolo  sotto  il  moggio.  La, 
D'Annunzio.  See  Light 
under  the  Bushel,  The 

Fiamme  nelV  ombra,  Butti. 
See  Flames  in  the  Dark 

Fidelity  of  Husbands,  The, 
G.  A.  Traversi,  159 

Figlia  di  Gianni,  Oriani.  See 
Jack's  Daughter 

Figlia  di  Jorio,  La,  D'Annun- 
zio. See  Daughter  of  Jorio, 
The 

Figlia  di  Nora,  C.  A.  Traversi. 
See  Nora's  Daughter 

Filippo  Strozzi,  Niocolini,  21 

Filo,  II,  Giacosa.  See  Thread, 
The 

Filon,  A.,  quoted,  53 

Fine  delV  amore,  La,  Bracco. 
See  End  of  Love,  The 

Fine  d'un  ideate,  Butti.  See 
End  of  an  Ideal,  The 

First  Time,  The,  G.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 156,  161 

Flames  in  the  Dark,  Butti,  137, 
144-145,  148,  257 


Flaubert,  G.,  50,  53,  62,  70, 

85,  120 
Flight  of  Swallows,  Borg,  218 
Fogazzaro,  A.,  148,  259 
Foscolo,  Ugo,  19 
Fotografia    senza  .  .  .,  Bracco. 

See  Photography  vrithovi  .  .  . 
Foundation  of  the  Camorra  at 

Naples,  Minichini,  208 
Fouquier,  H.,  quoted,  103 
Fox-hunt,  The,  Verga,  69,  72 
Fra    due    guandali,    Testoni. 

See  Between  Two  Pillows 
Francesca  da  Rimini,  Cesareo, 

217 
Francesca    da    Rimini,    D'An- 
nunzio, 12,  96,  99,  112-114, 

115,  117,  122,  124,  130,  131, 

252 
Francesca  da  Rimini,  Pellico,  20 
FrateUo    d'armi,    II,    Giacosa. 

See  Brother^n-arms,  The 
Freie  Bahne,  63 
PVench  Revolution,  5 
Friend,  The,  Praga,  86 
Friend,   The,  G.  A.  Traversi. 

158,  160 
Frutto  acerbo,  II,  Bracco.     See 

Bitter  Fruit,  The 
Frutto  amaro,  II,  Butti.     See 

Bitter  Fruit,  The 
Fuoco,  II,  D'Annunzio,  101 
Futurism,  235-241 

Gag,  The,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 
Galeotto  Manfredi,  Monti,  19 
Galli,  Dina,  193 
Gallina,  G.,  11,  148,  154,  206- 

207,  253 
Gamboni,  25 
Game  of  Chess,  A,  6,  35,  36,  38, 

44,  247 
Garofano,    Un,    Ojetti.        See 

Pink,  A 
Garofano  rosso,  II,  Fogazzaro. 

See  Red  Carnation,  The 


INDEX 


311 


Gautier,  Th.,  129 

Gendre    de    M.    Poirier,    Le, 

Augier,  12 
GentxLuomini     speculatori,     I, 

Sufler.         See     Speculating 

Gentlemen,  The 
George's  Sacrifice,  C.  A.  Tra- 

versi,  150 
Giacinta,  Capuana,  66 
Giaoometti,  P.,  6,  28,  33,  185, 

246 
Giaoomo,  S.  di,  75,  202,  208- 

209,  226,  253,  255 
Giacosa,  G.,  6,  11,  13,  22,  33, 

35-62,  63,  64,  71,  85,  148, 

149,  150,  154,  163,  180,  190, 

223,  247,  253 
Gianni,  Olga,  193 
Cfiant  and    the    Pygmies,    The, 

Butti,  137,  147 
Gibigianna,  La,  Bertolazzi,  207 
Gigante   ei   pigmei,    II,   Butti. 

See  Giant  and  the  Pygmies, 

The 
Gioconda,  La,  D'Annunzio,  96, 

99,  101,  107-110,  116,  126, 

130,  188 
Giorgio  Gandi,  Marenco,  27 
Giorni  di  festa,  J,  Bertolazzi. 

See  Festival  Days 
Giorni  piil  lieti,  I,  G.  A.  Tra- 

versi.     See   Happiest   Days, 

The 
Giovanni  da  Procida,  Niceolini, 
Giovannini,  Alberto,  193 
Giudice,     II,     Ubertis.       See 

Judge,  The 
Givliana,  Praga,  87 
Gloria,  La,  D'Annunzio.    See 

Glory 
Glory,  D'Annunzio,  101,  110- 

112,  117,  124,  126,  188,  252 
Goethe,  15,  16 
Goldoni,  C,  8,  10,  12,  28,  40, 

56,  148,  154,  158,  184,  206, 

245 


Goldoni  and  hit  Sixteen   New 

Comedies,  Ferrari,  31 
Goldoni  e  le  sue  sedici  commedie 

nuove,  Ferrari.     See  above 
Goncourt,  E.  and  J.  de,  50,  69 
Good  Girl,  The,  Lopez,  224,  225 
Gorgon,  The,  Benelli,  214,  216 
Gorgona,     La,    Benelli.      See 

above 
Gozzi,  C,  206 
Grammatica,  Emma,  193 
Grammatiea,  Irma,  193 
Grande  ombra,  La,  G.  A.  Tra- 

versi.    See    Great    Shadow, 

The 
Grandmother,  The,  Praga,  90 
Grasso,  G.,  67,  193 
Great  Shadow,  The,  G.  A.  Tra- 

versi,  160 
Guarini,  8 
Gubematis,  A.,  25 

Hallelujah  1  Praga,  90 
Handsome  Apollo,  The,  Praga, 

90 
Happiest    Days,    The,    G.    A. 

Traversi,  158 
Happiness,  Ubertis,  85 
Harduin  da  Ivrea,  Morelli,  26 
Hauptmann,  G.,  5,  168,  190, 

195,  249,  260 
He,  Her,  He !  Braoco,  164       * 
Heart  Shadows,  Bertolazzi,  208 
Hedda  Gabler,  Ibsen,  136 
Heir,  The,  Praga,  90,  92 
Herder,  4 

Hervieu,  P.,  85,  223 
Hidden  Spring,    The,  Braoco, 

171,  172,  180 
Home,  Home  I  Novelli,  229 
Honest  Wife,  An,  G.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 159 
Honeysuckle,  The,  D'Annunzio, 

104,  123 
Honorable  Lover,  The,  Bracoo, 

170,  178 


312 


INDEX 


Hony  soil  qui  mal  y  pense,  G.  A. 

Traversi,  157 
Hubbub,  The,  Rovetta,  79 
Hugo,  v.,  14,  18,  29,  184 
Huneker,  J.,  quoted,  128 
Hurricane,  The,  Lopez,  225 
Husbands,  Torelli,  33,  246 
Husband  in  Love  ivith  his  Wife, 

The,  Giacosa,  42,  44 
Husband's  School,  The,  G.  A. 

Traversi,  158 
Huysmans,  K.  J.,  120 

Ibsen,  H.,  5,   13,  47,  54,  82, 

135,  136,  142,  160,  163,  166, 

190,  235,  247,  248,  255 
Ideal  Wife,  The,  Praga,  87,  89, 

93 
//  not   thus  .  .  .,   I*irandello, 

221,  222 
Illica,  L.,  60 

Illusion,  Roselli,  83  ^_ 

Immoral  Man,  The,  Butti,  139 
In  automobile,  Testoni,  231 
In  bordata,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 
In  pace,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 
In  Porteneria,  Verga.     See  In 

the  Porter's  Lodge 
In  quieto  vivere,  Testoni.     See 

Living  Quietly 
In  the  City  of  Rome,  Rovetta, 

78 
In  the  Land  of  Fortune,  Butti, 

146 
In  the  Pawn-shop,  Bertolazzi, 

207 
In  the   Porter's  Lodge,  Verga, 

69,72 
Incantesimo,    V ,    Butti.     See 

Enchantment,  The 
Incanto,  Butti.     See  Spell,  The 
Independent  Theatre,  The,  64 
Infedele,  L',  Bracco.     See  Un- 
faithful Woman,  The 
Innamorata,    L',    I*raga.     See 

Enamoured  Woman,  The 


Innocente,  V ,  D'Annunzio,  101 
Intermezzo  poetico,  Butti.     See 

Poetic  Intermezzo 
International,  The,  Bracco,  177 
ImLtUitd.  del  male,   L',   Ojetti. 

See  Uselessness  of  Evil,  The 
Invincible,     Oriani.     See     Un^ 

conquerable 
Invisible  Sun,  The,  Butti,  146 
Invitato     a     pranzo,     Novelli. 

See  Invited  to  Dinner 
Invited  to  Dinner,  Novelli,  229 

Jack's  Daughter,  Oriani,  162 
Jones,  H.  A.,  260 
Jonson,  Ben,  8 

Joys  of  M.  Travel,  Bersezio,  206 
Judge,  The,  Ubertis,  84,  249 
Julius  Ccesar,  Corradini,  217 
Just  Think,  Giacomino,  Piran- 
dello, 221,  222 

King  Hubbub,  Marinetti,  241 
King  Nala,  Gubematis,  25 
KuUureide,  La,  Novelli,  229 

Labiche,  E.,  177,  227 

Lady  of  Challant,  The,  Gia- 
cosa, 37,  43 

Lady  of  the  Fourth  Page,  The, 
Novelli,  227 

Last  Days  of  Go ff redo  Mamelli, 
The,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 

Last  Hope,  The,  G.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 157 

Late  Repentance,  The,  Giacosa, 
45 

Lawrence,  D.  H.,  quoted,  127 

Leopardi,  G.,  146,  252 

LeSage,  59 

Lettre  d'amore,  Cavalotti.  See 
Love  Letters 

Liegheb,  C,  192 

Light  under  the  Bushel,  The, 
D'Annunzio,  111,  115-116, 
124,  126,  127 


INDEX 


313 


Line  Viareggio-Pisa-Rome,  The, 

Novelli,  227 
lAdla,  Pirandello,  221 
Lip-pi's  Virgins,  Novelli,  229 
Lisle,  Leconte  de,  66 
Little  Saint,  The,  Braeco,  176 
Living   Quietly,    Testoni,   230, 

231 
Livingston,   A.,    quoted,   215, 

250,  251,  254 
Longinus,  38 
Lopez,   S.,  91,  220,  223-225, 

233,  249 
Lorenzo,  Tina  di,  177,  192 
Lorenzo  and  his  Lawyer,  Ber- 

tolazzi,  207 
Lorenzo  ed  it  sua  awocato,  Ber- 

tolazzi.     See  Lorenzo  and  his 

Lawyer 
Lost  in  the  Darkness,  Braeco, 

174-175,  180 
Love  Letters,  Cavalotti,  31 
Love  of  the  Three  Kings,  The, 

Benelli,  12,  213,  214 
Love  on  the  House-tops,  Novelli, 

227,  228 
Low  Life,  Giacomo,  208 
Lucifer,  Butti,  135,  138,  143, 

147,  148 
Lucrecia' s  System,  Del  Testa,  32 
Ludovico  Sforza,  Niccolini,  20 
Lui,  lei,  lui,  Braeco.    See  He, 

Her,  He! 
Luisa,  Giacosa,  45 
Lulu,  Bertolazzi,  207 
Lumie   di   Sicilia,   Pirandello, 

See  Sicilian  Limes 
Lupa,    La,    Verga.     See   She- 
wolf,  The 

Machiavelli,  21,  65 

Madame  Butterfly,  Giacosa,  60 

Madame     President,     Braoco- 

Borg,  167,  217 
Madre,   C.  A.  Traversi.     See 

Mother 


Madre,    La,   Q.   A.   Traversi. 

See  Mother,  The 
Maestro  Don  Gesualdo,  Verga, 

68 
Maeterlinck,  M.,  105,  106,  120 
Mafarka    the    Futurist,    Mari- 

netti,  236 
Maja,  Gubernatis,  25 
Mala  vita,  Giacomo.    See  Low 

Life 
Malavoglia  Family,  The,  Verga, 

68 
MaV  occhio,  Nani,  162 
Malia,    Capuana.      See    En- 
chantment 
Mamma  non  mu/yre.  La,  Gal- 

lina.    See  Mother  never  Dies, 

The 
Mantegna,  Novelli,  227 
Mantellaccio,  II,  Benelli.    See 

Mantle,  The 
Mantle,  The,  Benelli,  214 
Manzoni,  4,  15-19,  22,  33,  65, 

236,  246,  252 
Marcellina,  Marenco,  27 
Marenco,  L.,  4,  6,  24,  25,  27, 

28,  35,  246 
Maria  Antonietta,  Giacometti, 

25 
Maria  Maddalena,  Calvi,  217 
Mariage  d'Olympe,  Augier,  13 
Marie  de  BYance,  124 
Marinetti,  F.  T.,  236,  241 
Mario  e  Maria,  Lopez,  225 
Mariti,  I,  Torelli.     See  Hus- 
bands 
Marito  amante  delta  moglie,  II, 

See   Husband  in   Love   with 

his  Wife,  The 
Marivaux,  156,  161 
Marlowe,  8 

Marriage  in  the  drama,  257 
Marriage  of  the  Centaurs,  The^ 

Benelli,  213,  214 
Martini,  31,  32 
Martino,  G.  di,  203 


314 


INDEX 


Martiri  del  Lavoro,  I,  G.  A. 

Traversi.     See    Martyrs    to 

Work 
Martyrdom  of  Saint  Sebastian, 

The,   D'Annunzio,  96,   101, 

121,  123,  124,  128,  132 
Martyre  de  S.  Sibastien.     See 

above 
Martyrs  to  Work,  Q.  A.  Tra^- 

versi,  159 
Mascagni,  71,  122 
Maschera  di  Bruto,  La,  Benelli. 

See  Mask  of  Brutus,  The 
Maschere,  Bracco.     See  Masks 
Mask  of  Brutus,  The,  Benelli, 

212,  216 
Masked     Portrait,     The,     Fo- 

gazzaro,  148 
Masks,  Bracco,  166,  173 
Mater  Dolorosa,  Praga,  87 
MaternitA,  Bracco,  171,  172 
Matrimonio  d^ Alberto,  II,  C.  A. 

Traversi.     See  Albert's  Mar- 
riage 
Mattina  dopo,  La,  G.  A.  Tra- 
versi.    See   Morning    After, 

The 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  50,  120 
Medidna    d' una   ragazza    artv- 

malata.     La,     Ferrari.     See 

Sick  Girl's  Medicine,  A 
Media,  Nicoolini,  20 
Melato,  Maria,  193 
Messalina,  Cossa,  25 
Meynardier,  182 
Minichini,  Ed.,  208 
Mirbeau,  O.,  59 
Miserie  del  S.  Travetti,  Bersezio. 

See  Sorrows  of  M.  Travel 
Model,  The,  Testoni,  231 
Modella,    La,    Testoni.        See 

Model,  The 
Modena,  G.,  182 
Moglie  del  dottore.   La,   Zam- 

baldi.     See    Doctor's    Wife, 

The 


Moglie  ideale.  La,  Praga.     See 

Ideal  Wife,  The 
Moglie  onesta,  Una,  G.  A.  Trar 

versi.     See  Honest  Wife,  An 
MoliSre,  G.  B.,  7,  11,  48,  158 
Molibre  and  his  Wife,  Rovetta, 

80,82 
Molibre  e  la  sua  moglie,  Ro- 
vetta.    See  above 
Momie    sanglante.    La,    Mari- 

netti.  See        Bleeding 

Mummy,  The 
Monello,  75 

Montemezzi,  I.,  126,  213 
Monti,  v.,  19,  246 
Moral  of  the  Fable,  The,  Praga, 

91 
Morale  della  favola.  La,  Praga. 

See  above 
More  than  Love,  D'Annunzio, 

101,  116-117,  127 
Morelli,  S.,  25 

Morning  After,  The,  G.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 155 
Morsa,   La,  Pirandello.       See 

Bite,  The 
Morte   civile.   La,   Giacometti. 

See  Civil  Death 
Morte  di  Dararata,  La,  Guber- 

natis.    See  Death  of  Dararata 
Morticino,     II,     Novelli.     See 

Changeling,  The 
Morton,  Michael,  218 
Moschino,  E.,  217,  233 
Mother,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 
Mother,  The,  G.  A.  Traversi, 

159 
Mother  n^ver  Dies,  The,  Gallina, 

206 
Mountain    Torrents,    Giaoosa, 

45 
Muret,  N.,  quoted,  47,  82,  110, 

133 
Musset,  A.  de,  156,  212 
Mutilated     Devil,     A,    Petite, 

204 


INDEX 


315 


Ndbueco,  Niccolini,  20 
Nadejde,  Fogazzaro,  148 
Nani,  G.  A.,  162 
Naples,   Drama  in,   75,   203- 

205 
Napolitani  del  1799,  7,  Cossa. 

See  Neapolitans  in  1799,  The 
Naturalism,  7 
Nave,  La,  D'Annunzio.       See 

Ship,  The 
Nazimova,  A.,  167 
Neapolitans  of  1799,  Cossa,  25 
Nel  paese  della  fortuna,  Butti. 

See  In  the  Land  of  Fortune 
Nemica,  La,  Niccodemi.     See 

Enemy,  The 
Nemico,     II,     Baffico.         See 

Enemy,  The 
Nemmeno    un    bacio,    Bracco. 

See  Not  even  a  Kiss 
Neo-romanticism,  23  ff. 
Nero,  Boito,  217 
Nero,  Cossa,  25,  26,  247 
New  Life,  The,  Del  Testa,  32 
Niccodemi,   Dario,    180,   218- 

220,  233,  249,  255 
Niccolini,    G.   B.,   20-21,   33, 

185,  246 
Nietzsche,  F.,  94, 100,  111,  217 
Nights  of  Snow,  Bracco,  174 
Non  fare  ad  altri,  Bracco.     See 

Do  not  unto  others 
Nonna,  La,  Praga.     See  Grand- 
mother, The 
Nora's   Daughter,   C.  A.   Tra- 

versi,  150,  151 
Nost'  Milan,    Bertolazzi.     See 

Our  Milan 
Nostra  pelle.  La,  Lopez.     See 

Every  Man  for  Himself 
Not  even  a  Kiss,  Bracco,  177 
Not  to  Die,  Ubertis,  85 
Notte  di  Neve,  Bracco.       See 

Nights  of  Snow 
Novelli,    Augusto,    220,    226- 

230,  233,  249 


Novelli.  Ermete,  79,  186,  191, 

194,  197,  227 
Nozze  dei  centauri,  Le,  Benelli. 

See  Marriage  of  the  Centaurs, 

The 
Nuda,  Borg,  217 
Nuova  polemica,  Stecchetti,  65 

Occhi  del  cuore,   Gli,   Gallina 

See  ET/es  of  the  Heart,  The 
Ojetti,  Ugo,  232,  233 
Old  Heroes,  Novelli,  227 
OUva,  D.,  217,  233 
Ombra,    L',    Niccodemi.    See 

Shadow,  The 
Ombre    del    cuore,    Bertolazzi. 

See  Heart  Shadows 
'Omese  Mariano,  di  Giacomo, 

208 
Oliva,  D.,  quoted,  135 
Olive    Branch,    The,    Rovetta, 

79 
On  the  Goerner,  Ubertis,  85 
On  the  Second  and  Third  Floors 

in  the  Healthy  Quarter,  204 
On  the  Sill,  Baffico,  162 
Ondina,  P*raga,  91 
Only  Excuse,  The,  G.  A.  Tr»- 

versi,  156 
Ordonanza,  Testoni.    See  LHs- 

cipline 
Oriani,  A.,  162,  249 
Other  Bank,  The,  Ubertis,  85 
Other   People's  Fault,  Baffico, 

162 
Our  Milan,  Bertolazzi,  207 
Ouragan,     V,     Lopez.        See 

Hurricane,  The 

Pailleron,  E.,  31,  63 

Palace  of  Sleep,  The,  Berto- 
lazzi, 207 

Paladini,  Ettore,  198 

Pane  rosso,  II,  Ubertis.  See 
Red  Bread 

Paoli,  Evelina,  193 


316 


INDEX 


Papa  Eccellema,  Rovetta,  79, 

82 
Pappagal,   ch'  our  hf  Testoni. 

See  Parrot,  what  time  is  it  ? 
Parable   of  the  Foolish  Virgins 

and  the  Wise  Virgins,  D'An- 

nunzio,  101,  102 
Parable  of  the  Rich   Man  and 

Poor    Lazarus,    The,    D'An- 

nunzio,  101,  102 
Parable   of  the   Prodigal   Son, 

D'Annunzio,  101 
Parasites,  The,  C.  A.  Traversi, 

153 
Parasiti,  I.     See  above 
Paravento,  II,  G.  A.  Traversi. 

See  Screen,  The 
Parisienne,  La,  Becque,  89 
Parisina,  D'Annunzio,  122 
Parrot,  what  time  isitf  Testoni, 

232 
Partita  a  scacchi,  Una,  Giacosa. 

See  Game  of  Chess,  A 
Pascoli,  G.,  37,  66,  235,  259 
Passatisti,  235,  252 
Passato    che    torna,    II,    Borg. 

See  Returning  Past,  The 
Pastor  Fido,  II,  Guarini,  8 
Pastoral  Plays,  27-28 
Peer  Gynt,  Ibsen,  253 
Pelliccia  di  martora.  La,  G.  A. 

Traversi.     See  Coat  of  Mar- 
ten-fur, The 
Pellico,  S.,  20,  184,  246 
Pensaci,  Giacomino,  Pirandello. 

See  Just  think,  Giacomino 
Per  non  morire,  Ubertis.     See 

Not  to  Die 
Per    vanitd,    G.    A.    Traversi. 

See  Through  Vanity 
Perfect  Love,  The,  Bracco,  177 
Period  and  a  New  Line,  C.  A. 

Traversi,  150 
Pescecani,  I,  Niccodemi.     See 

Sharks,  The 
Petito,  A.,  203 


Petito,  S.,  203 

Pezzenti,  I,  Cavalotti.  See 
Vagabonds,  The 

Phantasms,  Bracco,  171,  173 

Photography  without,  Bracco, 
177 

Piacere,  II,  D'Annunzio.  See 
Pleasure 

Piacere  dell'  onestd,  II,  Piran- 
dello. See  Pleasure  of  Hon- 
esty, The 

Piave,  La,  D'Annunzio,  126 

Piccola  Fonte,  La,  Bracco. 
See  Hidden  Spring,  The 

Piccolo  Santo,  II,  Bracco.  See 
Little  Saint,  The 

Piccolo  teatro,  Testoni,  231 

Pilotto,  Libero,  192 

Pindemonte,  G.,  20,  246 

Pindemonte,  I.,  20,  246 

Pinero,  A.,  160,  260 

Pink,  A,  Ojetti,  232 

PirandeUo,  L.,  220,  224,  233, 
249,  253,  256 

Pisan  Woman  or  Perfumed 
Death,  The,  D'Annunzio, 
121,  124 

Pisanelle,  ou  la  Mort  parfumie. 
La,  D'Annunzio.     See  above 

PiO,  che  I'amore,  D'Annunzio. 
See  More  than  Love 

Piit  forte,  II,  Giacosa.  See 
Stronger,  The 

Plauto  e  il  suo  secolo,  Cossa. 
See  Plautus  and  his  Century 

Plautus,  197 

Plautus  and  his  Century,  Cossa, 
25 

Pleasure,  D'Annunzio,  98 

Pleasure  of  Honesty,  The, 
Pirandello,  121 

Poet  and  the  Dancing  Girl,  The, 
Giacometti,  28,  30,  246 

Poeta  e  la  ballerina,  II,  Gia- 
cometti.    See  above 

Poetic  intermezzo,  Butti,  146 


INDEX 


317 


PoUssena,  Niccolini,  20 
Poor  People,  Bertolazzi,  207 
Porta  chiusa,  La,  Praga.     See 

Closed  Door,  The 
Porto-Riche,  G.,  163 
Postuma,  Stecchetti,  65 
Povera   gente,    La,    Bertolazzi. 

See  Poor  People 
Praga,  M.,  7,  85-93,  149,  154, 

190,  197,  249,  253 
Preghiera     della     bimba.     La, 

C.  A.  Traversi.     See  Child's 

Prayer,  The 
Presidentessa,  La,  Borg-Bracco. 

See  Madame  President 
Provost,  M.,  88 
Prima  volta.   La,   G.   A.   Tra- 
versi.    See  First  Time,  The 
Principio   di   secolo,    Rovetta. 

See  Beginning  of  the  Century 
Prodigal  Husband,  The,  Nicco- 

demi.     See  Refuge,  The 
Promessi  Sposi,  I,  Manzoni,  19 
Prometeo,  Bolognese,  25 
Prosa,  Ferrari,  31 
Prosperity  del  S.  Travetti,  Le, 

Bersezio.     See   Joys   of  M. 

Travel 
Puccini,  G.,  60 
Pulci,  252 
Pulcinella,  202 
Punto  e  da  capo,  C.  A.  Traversi. 

See  Period  and  a  New  Line 
Purgatorio,  Inferno  e  Paradiso, 

NoveUi,  227 

Quel  che  paga  V  olio,  Testoni, 

232 
Quel  non  so  che,  Testoni.     See 

That  Certain  Something 
Quintero- Alvarez,  260 

Rabelais,  232 

Race  for  Pleasure,  The,  Butti, 

135,  138,  143,  148 
Racine,  J.,  7,  120 


Ramo  d'  uliva,  II,  Rovetta. 
See  Olive  Branch,  The 

Rasi,  L.,  217 

Razzo,  II,  G.  A.  Traversi. 
See  Rocket,  The 

Re  Baldoria,  II,  Marinetti. 
See  King  Hubbub 

Re  buffone,  II,  Rovetta.  See 
Buffoon  King,  The 

Re  Nala,  II,  Gubernatis.  See 
King  Nala 

Realism,  2-3,  62 

Reality,  Rovetta,  79 

Red  Bread,  Ubertis,  85 

Red  Carnation,  The,  Fogazzaro, 
148 

Red  Count,  The,  Giacosa,  36, 
41,  42,  45,  247,  252 

Red  Roses,  Borg,  218 

Refuge,  The,  Niccodemi,  219 

Regno  di  Adelaide,  II,  Del 
Testa.  See  Reign  of  Ade- 
laide, The 

Reign  of  Adelaide,  The,  Del 
Testa,  32 

Reinhardt,  M.,  260 

Reiter,  Virginia,  193 

R6jane,  219 

Remnant,  Niccodemi,  219 

Repertory  theatre,  197- 199 

Resa  a  discrezione,  Giacosa. 
See  Surrender  at  Discretion 

Returning  Past,  The,  Borg,  218 

Ricciarda,  Foscolo,  20 

Ridicolo,  Ferrari.  See  Ridi- 
cule 

Ridicule,  Ferrari,  31 

Right  to  Live,  The,  Braooo,  170, 
253 

Rights  of  the  Sotd,  The,  Gia- 
cosa, 54,  58 

Ristori,  A.,  184-185 

Ritratto  mascherato,  II,  Fogaz- 
zaro. See  Masked  Portrait, 
The 

Robespierre,  Oliva,  217 


318 


INDEX 


Rocket,    The,   G.   A.  Traversi, 

156 
Romagnoli,  E.,  217 
Romantic  Woman,  The,  Castel- 

vecchio,  32 
Romanticism,  1,  14-23 
Romanticismo,  Rovetta,  76,  80, 

82,  126,  249,  252 
Rose    rosse,    Bor^.     See    Red 

Roses 
Rosmunda,  Benelli,  213,  214 
Rosmunda  d'  Inghilterra,  Nicco- 

lini,  21 
RosseUi,  A.,  83-84,  249 
Rossi,  C,  150,  185,  190 
Rossi,  E.,  185,  194 
Rostand,  E.,  210 
Rovetta,  G.,  76-83,  85,   149, 

154,  190,  232,  236,  249 
Rozeno,    Le,    C.    A.    Traversi. 

See  Rozeno  Family,  The 
Rozeno    Family,    The,    C.    A. 

Traversi,  150 
Rubenstein,  Ida,  121 
Ruggieri,  Ruggero,  192 
Ruined  Family,  A,  Gallina,  206 
Rustic  Chivalry,  Verga,  69,  71, 

75,  193 

Sacrificio  di  Giorgio,  II,  C.  A. 

Traversi.  See      George's 

Sacrifice 
Sad  Loves,  Giaoosa,  6,  35,  36, 

44,  45,  48,  50-51,  58,  150, 

247 
Saint  Paul,  Bovio,  25 
Sainte-Beuve,  C.  A.,  74,  139 
Salvini,  Gustavo,  192 
Salvini,  Tom,  185 
San  Carlino  Theatre,  202-203 
Sanctis,  F.  de,  114 
Santa  Lucia,  Cognetti,  208 
Sardou,  V.,  44,  80,  216 
Satira  e   Parini,   La,   Ferrari. 

See  Satire  and  Parini 
Satire  and  Parini,  Ferrari,  31 


Scalata  aV  Olimpo,  La,  G.  A. 

Traversi.       See     Ascent    of 

Olympus,  The 
Scamandra,  Pirandello,  221 
Scampolo,    Niccodemi.        See 

Remnant 
Scarpetta,  Ed.,  204-205 
Scarpetta,  V.,  205 
SchiUer,  184 
Scintilla,    La,    Testoni.        See 

Spark,  The 
Scott,  W.,  15 

Screen,  The,  G.  A.  Traversi,  159 
Scribe,  E.,  80 
Scv^la  del  marito,  La,   G.  A. 

Traversi.        See    Husband's 

School,   The 
Se  non  cosl,  Pirandello.     See 

//  not  Thus! 
Second  Wife,  The,  Del  Testa,  32 
Secret,  The,  Lopez,  224 
Seductions,  Butti,  146 
Seduzione,  Le,  Butti.     See  Se- 
ductions 
Segreto,  II,  Lopez.     See  Secret^ 

The 
Selvatico,  R.,  206 
Semina,  Borg,  218 
Sempre  cosi,  Butti.     See  Ever 

Thus 
Seneca,  12 
Sensitive,  Borg,  218 
Serao,  M.,  98,  172,  173,  204, 

208 
Seruv,  El,  Testoni,  232 
Settemelli,  E.,  242 
Shadow,  The,  Niccodemi,  219 
Shakespeare,  W.,  7,  10,  15,  16, 

17,  27,  165,  184,  194,  246 
Sharks,  The,  Niccsodemi,  219 
Shaw,  G.  B.,  5,  64,  139,  185, 

188,  255 
She-wolf,  The,  Verga,  70,  72 
Ship,    The,    D'Annunzio,    96, 

101,  111,  117-119,  121,  122, 

124,  252 


INDEX 


319 


Siohel,  193 

Sicilian  Limes,  Pirandello,  221 

Sick  Girl's  Medicine,  A,  Fer- 
rajri,  31 

Signorina  delta  quarta  pagina. 
La,  Novelli.  See  Lady  of 
the  Fourth  Page,  The 

Simple  Soul,  G.  A.  Traversi, 
156 

Siren,  The,  Giacosa,  45 

Sirena,  La,  Giacosa,  See 
above 

Sistema  di  Lucrezia,  II,  Del 
Testa.  See  Lucreda's  Sys- 
tem 

Snail,  The,  Novelli,  229 

Soap-bubble,  A,  Bersezio,  206 

Socrates,  Bovio,  25 

Sogno  d'un  mattino  di  prima- 
vers,      D'Annunzio.  See 

Dream  of  a  Spring  Morning 

Sogno  d'un  tramonto  d'autunno, 
II,      D'Annunzio.  See 

Dream  of  an  Autumn  Sun- 
set, The 

Sole  invisibile,  II,  Butti.  See 
Invisible  Sun,  The 

Song  of  Songs,  The,  Cavalotti, 
31 

Sopravissuto,  II,  G.  A.  Tra- 
versi.    See  Survivor,  The 

Sorrows  of  Mr.  Travel,  Bersezio, 
205 

Soul,  The,  Butti,  140 

Soul,  The,  Ubertis,  83,  249 

Spark,  The,  Testoni,  231 

Speculaiing  Gentleman,  The, 
Sufier,  32 

SpeU,  The,  Praga,  87 

Sperduti  net  buio,  Bracoo.  See 
Lost  in  the  Darkness 

Stabat  Mater,  C.  A.  Traversi, 
153 

Stael,  de,  14 

Stecchetti,  L.,  65 

Stentorello,  202 


StiU  Waters,  Novelli,  227,  229 

Stone  Tower,  The,  C.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 153 

Storace,  208 

Strindberg,  A.,  243 

Stronger,  The,  Giacosa,  35,  59- 
60 

Strozzino,  C.  A.  Traversi,  153 

Sudermann,  H.,  187,  260 

Sul  Goerner,  Ubertis.  See  On 
the  Goerner 

Sulla  soglia,  Baffico.  See  On 
the  Sill 

Sufier,  L.,  32,  150 

Supper  of  Jokes,  The,  Benelli, 
12,  210,  212,  214,  215,  216, 
252 

Surrender  at  Discretion,  Gia- 
cosa, 35,  45 

Survivor,  The,  G.  A.  Traversi, 
160 

Susette's  Catechism,  Borg,  218 

Swallows  or  Chaffinches,  C.  A. 
Traversi,  150 

Talli,  v.,  193 

Tangle,  The,  Lopez,  225 

Tardi  raweduta.  La,  Giaoosa. 

See  Late  Repentance,  The 
Tasso,  252 
Teatri  a  sezioni,  199 
Teatro  degli  autori  [Rome],  199 
Teatro  dell*  arte  [Turin],  197 
Teatro  Manzoni  [Milan],  198 
Teatro  Nuovo  [Naples),  202 
Tempest,  The,  Butti,  136,  143, 

144 
Terra  o  fuoco,  C.  A.  Traversi. 

See  Earth  or  Fire. 
Terzo  marito,  II,  Lopez.    See 

Third  Husband,  The 
Testoni,  A.,  16,  190,  220,  230- 

232,  249,  253 
That  Certain  Something,  Tes- 
toni, 230 
Theatres,  196  ff. 


320 


INDEX 


TMatre  de  V(Euvre,  241 
Theatre  libre,  53,  62,  63 
Third    Husband,    The,    Lopez, 

225 
Thread,  The,  Giacosa,  45 
Three,  Bracco,  170,  180 
Three  Gardens,  Borg,  218 
Through    Vanity,   G,   A.   Tra- 

versi,  156 
Thyestes,  Foscolo,  20 
Tignola,     La,    Benelli.        See 

Bookworm,  The 
Titan,  The,  Niccodemi,  220 
Tolstoi,  L.,  79,  100,  190,  223 
Tommasi,  de,  208 
Tonelli,  L.,  quoted,  29, 33, 179, 

260 
Tordi  0  fringuelli,  C.  A.  Tra- 

versi.     See  Swallows  or  Chaf- 
finches 
Torelli,  A.,  11,  31,  32-33,  62, 

63,  154,  183,  246 
Torre  di  pietra.  La,  C.  A.  Tra- 

versi.     See  Stone  Tower,  The 
Tosca,  La,  Giacosa,  60 
Tragedies  of  the  Soul,  Bracco, 

171,  180 
Tragedie   delV  anima,    Bracco. 

See  Tragedies  of  the  Soul 
Traveling        Adventure,    j    A, 

Bracco,  164,  178 
Tre     giardini,     Borg.         See 

Three  Gardens 
Trilogia   di    Dorina,    La,    Ro- 

vetta.     See  Dorina's  Trilogy 
Trionfo  d'  amore,  II,  Giacosa. 

See  Triumph  of  Love,  The 
Trionfo,     II,     Bracco.         See 

Triumph,  The 
Tristan  e  Isolda,  Moschino,  217 
Tristi   amori,    Giacosa.        See 

Sad  Loves 
Triumph,    The,    Bracco,    167, 

168-169,  257 
Triumph  of  Love,  The,  Giacosa, 

39 


Tumiati,  D.,  217,  233 

Turgeniev,  11,  190 

Tutto  per  V  amore,  Ojetti.    See 

All  for  Love 
Tutto  per  nulla,  Butti.     See  AU 

for  Nothing 
Two  Houses,  The,  Praga,  86 

Ubertis,  Teresa,  83,  249 
Ueberbrettl,  241  ^ 

Ultima  spese,  U,  G.  A.  Tra^ 

versi.     See  Last  Hope,  The 
Ultimi  giorni  di  Goffredo  Ma- 

melli,   Gli,   C.   A.   Traversi. 

See   Last   Days   of  Goffredo 

Mamelli 
Uncle  Venanzio's  WUl,  Ferrari, 

31 
Unconquerable,  Oriani,  162 
Unfaithful        Woman,        The, 

Bracco,  53,   167,   177,   180, 

249 
Unica  scusa,   U,   G.  A.   Tra- 
versi.   ,  See  Only  Excuse,  The 
Unione  dei  capocomici,  197 
Unities,  The  Three,  17 
Uno  degli  onesti,  Bracco.     See 

Honorable  Lover,  The 
Uocchie  cunzacrate,  L',  Bracco. 

See  Consecrated  Eyes 
Uselessness  of  Evil,  The,  Ojetti, 

232 
Utopia,    V,   Butti,    135,    136, 

140,  147 

Vagabonds,  The,  Gavalotti,  24 
Vanquished,  The,  Verga,  TO,  68 
Vasari,  227 
Vechi  eroi,  Novelli.     See  Old 

Heroes 
Venice,  Theatre  in,  206-207 
Verga,  G.,  14,  33,  50,  62,  63, 

64,  66,  67-75,  86,  131,  149, 

155,  193,  222,  247,  253 
Vergini,  Le,  P*raga.     See  Vir-r 

gins.  The 


INDEX 


321 


Vergini  del  Ldppi,  Le,  Novelli. 
See  Lippi's  Virgins 

Vergini  delle  rocce,  Le,  D'An- 
nunzio,  101 

Verhaeren,  E.,  120 

Verists,  26,  33,  63-65,  247-248 

Viaggio  di  nozze,  G.  A,  Tra- 
versi.  See  Wedding  Jour- 
ney,   The 

Vigny,  A.  de,  100 

Viluppo,  II,  Lopez.  See 
Tangle,  The 

Virgins,  The,  Praga,  87,  88,  93 

Vita  nuova,  La,  Del  Testa.  See 
New  Life,  The 

Volo  di  rondine,  Borg.  See 
Flight  of  Swallows 

Voltaire,  7 

Vortice,  II,  Butti.  See  Whirl- 
pool, The 

Vossler,  Karl,  quoted,  76,  130, 
133 


Wagner,  R.,  25 

Wedding  Journey,  The,  G.  A. 

Traversi,  159 
Whirlpool,  The,  Butti,  141 
Wilde,  Oscar,  161 
Witchcraft,  Capuana,  193 
Wolf-hunt,  The,  Verga,  70,  72 
Woman,  A,  Bracco,  164 
Worldly   Charity,  G.  A.  Tra- 
versi, 159 

Yorick,  quoted,  28,  29 

Zabel,  E.,  quoted,  190,  195 
Zacconi,  E.,  186,  190,  225 
Zambaldi,  S.,  232,  233,  249 
Zampa  del  gatto.  La,  Giacosa. 

See  Cat's  Claw,  The 
Zola,  E.,  13,  26,  29,  50,  63,  66, 

187 
Zuccoli,  255 


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